Visualizing Data Observatory datasets

Creating maps

Data Observatory datasets can be visualized from the CARTO Workspace using Builder. You can easily do so by clicking on the Create map action in the subscription’s detail page, available from the Data Observatory section of the Data Explorer:

Or by adding a new Data Observatory source to an existing map:

Those datasets whose size is within platform limits will be visualized in full. Bigger datasets will be applied a spatial filter (a buffer around the centroid of the most populated city of the dataset’s country), but this filter can be modified at your own will through the provided SQL query. These datasets will require a tileset to be visualized in full. Please refer to the Creating Data Observatory tilesets section to learn more.

Choosing a connection

You will be asked to select the connection that will be used to create a map with your Data Observatory subscription. The chosen connection will be used to retrieve the necessary data to add the layer to the map. Currently, CARTO Data Warehouse, BigQuery and Snowflake connections are supported; Redshift and Databricks support is coming soon.

In order to be able to use a Snowflake connection to create a map, the data first needs to be imported into your database. This import process is performed by our engineering team on a request basis.

To request it, go to the subscription’s page, click on the Create map button and choose the desired Snowflake connection. You will be asked to request access to the dataset.

Once we receive your request, we will get in touch with you to coordinate the import process. The data will be imported into a schema called CARTO that will be created in the Snowflake database you have set up in your Snowflake connection. Finally, you will be able to create a map using such connection.

If you would like to access more than one of your Data Observatory subscriptions from your Snowflake database, it is not necessary to request access for each of them individually, as we can import several datasets at once during the same process.