Bangladesh International Flight Network

This R project visualizes the international flight routes from Bangladesh using OpenFlights data and shapefiles for geographic context.

🔗 Useful Links

• Go to Live Interaction Map
• Full R Code

📌Features

• Visualizes international routes departing from Bangladeshi airports
• Spatial network representation using ggraph and sf
• Interactive labeling and customized layout
• Aesthetic dark-themed output image

How to Build an Interactive Bangladesh Flight Network Map with Embedded Flight Radar

1️⃣ Set Up Your Environment

Install R and RStudio (if not already installed).
Install required packages using the following command:

install.packages(c("tidyverse", "sf", "leaflet", "htmltools", 
                   "htmlwidgets", "viridis", "geosphere"))

2️⃣ Prepare Your Data

• Download the shapefile for Bangladesh's administrative boundaries.
• Obtain airport and route data (e.g., from OpenFlights: airports.dat, routes.dat).
• Read the shapefile using:

sf::st_read("path/to/shapefile")

• Load airports and routes as CSVs:

read.csv("airports.csv")
read.csv("routes.csv")

3️⃣ Filter and Clean Data

• Filter airports to only include Bangladesh (Country == "Bangladesh").
• Select international routes departing from BD airports to destinations outside BD (no stops).
• Join airport data with routes for coordinates.

4️⃣ Create Curved Flight Lines

• Use geosphere::gcIntermediate() to create smooth curved paths:

geosphere::gcIntermediate(c(lon1, lat1), c(lon2, lat2), n=50, addStartEnd=TRUE)

• Convert paths to spatial lines:

sf::st_linestring(matrix(c(lon1, lat1, lon2, lat2), ncol=2))

5️⃣ Build Your Leaflet Map

• Initialize Leaflet with a preferred base map (e.g., CartoDB.DarkMatter or Esri.WorldImagery).
• Add Bangladesh polygon shapefile with a semi-transparent fill.
• Overlay curved flight paths with color-coded origins, dashed styles, and interactive popups.
• Add airport markers with hover tooltips.

6️⃣ Add Interactivity

Enhance user interaction with JavaScript event handlers:

htmlwidgets::onRender("
  function(el,x) { 
    el.on('mouseover', function() {
      this.style.stroke = 'blue';
      this.style.strokeWidth = '2';
    });
  }
")

• Utilize labelOptions(sticky = TRUE) to prevent flickering hover labels.

7️⃣ Add Title & Legend

• Add a bold title at the top center:

leaflet::addControl("<h2>Bangladesh International Flight Network</h2>", position = "topcenter")

• Include a color-coded legend for BD airports:

leaflet::addLegend(position="bottomright", colors=colorVector, labels=airportNames)

8️⃣ Embed Live Flight Radar Map

Embed an iframe from a flight radar website:

<iframe src="https://www.flightradar24.com/" width="350" height="270" style="border:2px solid black; border-radius:10px;"></iframe>

9️⃣ Save and Share

Save your project as a standalone HTML file:

htmlwidgets::saveWidget(myLeafletMap, "BangladeshFlightNetwork.html")

🔟 Tips for Improvement

• Optimize hover sensitivity by adding invisible thicker lines under routes.
• Utilize sticky labels for airport names to enhance usability.
• Experiment with colorFactor() and dashArray for customized styles.
• Try different Leaflet base maps for unique presentations.
• Expand the dataset to explore other airports or flight sources.

---

📁 Project Structure

.
├── data/               # Airport and route data
├── Shapefile/          # Bangladesh and world shapefiles
├── bangladesh_flight_network.R  # Main R script
├── README.md           # Project overview
├── .gitignore          # Files to ignore in Git
└── LICENSE             # License info