This short post is about the process of flow mapping in ArcGIS and not really about the end results - though the maps are quite interesting. I've done quite a bit of flow mapping in the past and am now getting ready to work on the next set of Census flow data in the UK (which should be out in November) so I've been experimenting with some tools. I've written about this in the past in papers in Computers, Environment and Urban Systems and also Environment and Planning B but those papers are a bit long-winded! Other people have produced beautiful flight path maps so I thought I'd experiment with the same data using the relatively new ArcGIS XY to Line tool in version 10.0 (it can be found in ArcToolbox - Data Management Tools - Features - XY to Line at the bottom of the list of tools). For more on other methods and previous iterations of this kind of thing take a look at the work of Nathan Yau, Michael Markieta or James Cheshire.
For anyone wanting to map flows in ArcGIS, Michael Markieta's tutorial is probably a good place to start but be prepared for things to go awry in ArcGIS... When I mapped the 59,000 or so flight paths in the map above using XY to Line and one single dbf file (or csv, etc. - it makes no difference) the resulting shapefile only contained 16,066 rows. This happened every time I tried it and a couple of times my shapefile had only 73 rows. Another time it had ~14,000. That's why Markieta recommends splitting the file up - although I just cut it up into chunks of 16,000. Interestingly, I ran into exactly the same problem with my CEUS paper a few years back using Glennon's flow data model tool - though the limit was about 32,000 before it cut off.
Another very annoying feature of XY to Line (for me at least) is that when you choose the Great Circle option under 'Line Type' it takes much longer to compute and the resultant shapefile is enormous. The shapefile for flight paths in the above map is about 10MB whereas the great circle version was over 450MB for one 16,000 chunk alone. Not sure if anyone else has run into this but it doesn't seem like a very efficient way of doing things! [Edit - as @baeing has reminded me, it's because shapefiles don't support curves - though geodatabases do.]
Once I had my complete shapefile I moved to QGIS, added in a world layer from Natural Earth and then experimented a little with symbology. I also experimented with different styles and projections to produce some of the maps below. That's all for now - I just hope ESRI are able to improve upon the current version of XY to Line because when it does work it is really fast (on my machine at least) and straightforward.
Very similar to above, minus text
Short haul, different projection
Short haul, different projection, borders
Slightly different symbology
And, yes, I know that flights from Australia or New Zealand typically go over the Pacific rather than the long way round! I'm just showing the XY to Line outputs as they are in this post.
