Python library for animated map visualization

Question

I want to visualize track on geographic map. I don't need thousands of layers, 3d and other GIS functionality. I just want to visualize my (latitude, longitude, altitude, time) tuples on map background as simple as possible. Animation should also be supported.

Could anyone recommend good Python library?

Solution 1

There's something called basemap which is an addon for matplotlib to do maps.

See the gallery or cookbook example.

Matplotlib has it's own animation support and I don't know any reason it shouldn't work with basemap (although as that page notes, it's not the fastest thing around).

Solution 2

There is a YouTube video series which covers basemap and matplotlib called 'Geographical Plotting with Python' posted by Sentdex.

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6gvtfQHJUs

Incidentally he has a number of other interesting Python projects on his channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/sentdex