Geographic Data Sets

SAS Visual Analytics generates its polygons based on a series of rules and data contained within separate data sets. There are two important data sets that you will need to modify.

ATTRLOOKUP Data Set

The ATTRLOOKUP data set contains information about the individual regions and their polygons. It has 13 variables that, combined, provide information about the identifiers of the region. As part of the custom polygon registration, you add additional rows to this data set identifying the new custom regions.
By default, the ATTRLOOKUP data set is located in SAS-config-dir/Lev1/SASApp/Data/valib.
IDLABEL
specifies a unique name for the region. When registering custom regions, you need to ensure that the values are unique throughout the custom region. This might mean that you have to concatenate higher levels. For example, registering a list of US counties would require you to include the related US state in the name because there are county names that exist in multiple states.
Note: The values for IDLABEL cannot contain special characters.
ID
specifies the identifier code for the region. For the original polygons available in SAS Visual Analytics, it is a concatenation of the values of the two-letter country identifier (for example: AU for Australia, US for United States, UK for United Kingdom), and a numeric count indicating which region (for example, New South Wales = AU-1, Victoria = AU-2). This is based on level 1 values. Level values are explained below.
Note: The values for ID must be unique throughout the ATTRLOOKUP data set.
Note: The values for ID cannot contain single quotation or double quotation marks.
IDNAME
specifies a unique name for the region. For custom polygons, the IDNAME and IDLABEL values are identical.
Note: The values for IDNAME cannot contain special characters.
ID1NAME
identifies the IDNAME value of the region that a subregion belongs to. For example, the ID1NAME of North Carolina is United States and the ID1NAME of London is United Kingdom.
Note: The values of ID1NAME must be unique throughout the custom region and cannot contain special characters.
ID2NAME
identifies the region that level 2 subdivisions belong to. This variable is not used in SAS Visual Analytics 7.4.
ID3NAME
identifies the region that level 3 subdivisions belong to. This variable is not used in SAS Visual Analytics 7.4.
ISO
specifies the ISO international country code standards for the default values. The numbers are determined for each country by the ISO. The list of current country ISO values used by SAS Visual Analytics can be found at http://support.sas.com/va73geo . For custom polygons, this value should be an unused value within the map file.
ISONAME
specifies the ISO standard name for the default values. For custom polygons, the value must be less than 55 characters and must be an uppercase value.
key
specifies a lookup key. The value is a concatenation of the IDNAME and ID1NAME variables, separated by a pipe (|) character.
ID1
specifies the ID value of the region that a subregion belongs to. For example, the ID1 of North Carolina is US and the ID1 of London is UK. The ID1 value must be unique throughout the ATTRLOOKUP data set.
ID2
specifies the ID value of the region that a level 2 subregion belongs to. This variable is not used in SAS Visual Analytics 7.4.
ID3
specifies the ID value of the region that a level 3 subregion belongs to. This variable is not used in SAS Visual Analytics 7.4.
level
specifies the level of the region. A level 0 region is a country. A level 1 region is a subdivision, such as a state or province. Level 2 and level 3 regions are not currently supported in SAS Visual Analytics.
The custom polygon deployment program creates a new region (level=0) representing the entire custom polygon area, and subdivisions (level=1) representing each individual custom region or polygon.

CENTLOOKUP Data Set

The CENTLOOKUP data set contains information about the centroids (center points) of individual regions and the map file that contains their polygon data. Information about centroids is used for the bubble plot and scatter plot geographic visualizations in SAS Visual Analytics.
By default, the CENTLOOKUP table is located in SAS-config-dir/Lev1/SASApp/Data/valib.
MAPNAME
specifies a SAS data set reference, including the library. This is under the standard method of LIBNAME.DATASETNAME, and is restricted by all standard SAS naming conventions.
Note: The data set name containing the polygon files must end in a “1” for SAS Visual Analytics to correspond these polygons to a level 1 variable. For example, MAPSGFK.VAOCEANIA1.
ID
specifies the short code identifier of the region. This ID value must be identical to the value in the ATTRLOOKUP table for the region. This ID value will also be in the map.
X
specifies the longitude coordinate for the center point of the region.
Y
specifies the latitude coordinate for the center point of the region.

Custom Polygon Data Set

The custom polygon data set needs to contain the necessary information for SAS Visual Analytics to plot a polygon based on the relevant ID variable. Each variable in the data set corresponds to a single point in the polygon. SAS Visual Analytics connects each of the points corresponding to the ID variable to create a polygon based on this file.
ID
specifies the short coded identifier value for the region. The ID value must be identical to the value in the ATTRLOOKUP and CENTLOOKUP data sets for the region.
SEGMENT
specifies a numeric value to identify segments of the polygons. This is used to classify areas that are separated from the rest of the region that they belong to. For example, state polygons that contain multiple islands would need to specify a different segment to prevent SAS Visual Analytics from drawing a connection between the mainland and the island.
IDNAME
specifies a unique name for each region. It must be unique within the map file and identical to the corresponding IDNAME and IDLABEL values in the ATTRLOOKUP data set.
LONG
contains the unprojected longitude value for the point specified in this region. SAS Visual Analytics uses this value for its polygons. Therefore, this value is required to be present and accurate in the final file.
LAT
contains the unprojected latitude value for the point specified in this region. SAS Visual Analytics uses this value for its polygons. Therefore, this value is required to be present and accurate in the final file.
X
contains the projected longitude Albers value for the point specified in this region. SAS Visual Analytics uses the unprojected longitude values for its polygons. Therefore, this value is not required to be accurate for the purposes of custom polygons.
Y
contains the projected latitude Albers value for the point specified in this region. SAS Visual Analytics uses the unprojected latitude values for its polygons. Therefore, this value is not required to be accurate for the purposes of custom polygons.
ISO
specifies the ISO international country code standards for the default values. The numbers are determined for each country by the ISO. The list of current country ISO values used by SAS Visual Analytics can be found at http://support.sas.com/va73geo. For custom polygons, this value should be an unused value within the map file.
DENSITY
refers to the values output from running the map file through the GREDUCE procedure. PROC GREDUCE calculates the density of the points on the outline of the polygon. The higher the density, the higher the number, and the more detailed the polygon. For the purpose of visualizations in SAS Visual Analytics, high-density polygons are unnecessary. Therefore, you should limit the density of the map file to densities of less than 2. For more information, see GREDUCE in SAS/GRAPH: Mapping Reference.
RESOLUTION
specifies the level of map detail of the map file. This variable is currently unused by the polygon generation process.
LAKE
specifies whether this section of the polygon is a body of water. This variable is currently unused by the polygon generation process.
ISOALPHA2
specifies the identifier of the higher level associated with this polygon. For example, the ISO alpha-2 of the New South Wales polygon is AU and the ISO alpha-2 of London is UK. This variable should match the corresponding ID1 in the ATTRLOOKUP data set.
Admintype
specifies the type of polygon for SAS Visual Analytics, whether it corresponds to a state or province or to a country. For custom polygons, the Admintype Region is sufficient.
Last updated: December 18, 2018