Maps and Data Motion: travel maps, charts and visualizers — effect skill for numbers & charts

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Globe dives, flyovers, route maps, self-drawing charts, count-ups and audio visualizers with camera curves, chart rules and map credits.

Type: Effect · Numbers & charts
Slug: maps-and-data-motion
Status: live
Publisher: varg (varg, verified)
License: MIT
Source: https://github.com/vargHQ/skills/tree/main/maps-and-data-motion
Works in: Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, Gemini CLI, OpenClaw, varg Studio
Requires: Node 22 + ffmpeg (HyperFrames) or a Remotion 4 project
Cost: Free: renders locally with HyperFrames, Remotion or ffmpeg. Generated footage, voice or music is billed in varg credits with an estimate first.
Runtime: Minutes per template, mostly render time

What it does

Eight animations where the data or the place is the story. One paused timeline drives the camera, the numbers and the audio bands, so a frame renders the same on every pass, and the map credits are designed in rather than pasted on.

8 templates, 25 presets. Every rule in the skill cites its source; every preset is exact values (durations, easing, sizes, colors, fonts) in a JSON file the agent loads.

Template	Presets
Audio visualizer: Turns a soundtrack into silk ribbons, a scrolling wireframe terrain or an ASCII character field	Silk ribbons, Wire terrain, ASCII stream
Count-up statistic: One big number counts to its value over footage or a plain background, lands with a small pulse and holds with a label	Centre hero, Corner tag, Lower band, Split compare
Globe-to-country dive: A globe turns and zooms onto one country, which lights up and gets a label	Night globe, Atlas paper, Flat brand
Satellite flyover between two places: Camera lifts off over place A on satellite imagery, flies an arc and settles over place B while the route draws	Daylight, City lights, Slate
Self-drawing bar and line chart: Bars grow from a zero baseline or a line draws with its value riding the tip, then one datum is highlighted	Bars, Line, Editorial
Vector route map: A route draws itself across a flat vector map with a traveller riding the line and stops popping in	Clean light, Night transit, Multi-stop itinerary
Versus timeline: Two values move in opposite directions on a shared axis while a year counter ticks, ending with a gap callout	Light paper, Dark ink, Footage overlay
Watercolor travel route: A hand-painted watercolour map where a dashed ink route draws between two places with handwritten labels	Travel journal, Bold wash, Antique

Rules every template follows

One paused timeline drives everything: map cameras via per-frame jumpTo (never flyTo's own clock), counters via a tweened proxy, audio via precomputed per-frame arrays.
Camera moves use the van Wijk zoom-pan curve (rho 1.42 in MapLibre, √2 in d3), scale interpolated in log space, about one zoom level per second.
About 1 s per simple transition, slow-in slow-out, staged (axis/camera first, values/colour second), stagger 0.05–0.08 s (Heer & Robertson).
Bars start at zero, lines need not; one accent series, the rest grey; direct labels instead of legends; units in the subtitle.
Numbers: tabular figures, compact notation, 2–3 significant digits, signed deltas; count with easeOutExpo cubic-bezier(0.16,1,0.3,1), linear-then-ease above 999.
Build maps as vector (SVG/canvas from Natural Earth, public domain) so every part animates; raster only for imagery.

Built from: Heer & Robertson (InfoVis 2007); MapLibre/Mapbox docs and source; Datawrapper (Lisa Charlotte Muth); John Burn-Murdoch (FT); W3C Web Audio + Remotion + HyperFrames audio guide; Ryan Geiss (MilkDrop); Tyler Hobbs; CountUp.js; cartographers Joshua Stevens, Steven Bernard, John Nelson.

Renders locally with HyperFrames or Remotion for 0 credits; generated footage, voice or music runs through varg with a cost estimate first.

Use when

How to make an animated travel map video
How to animate a route on a map between two cities
How to make a satellite flyover video from A to B
How to zoom from a globe into a country in a video
How to make a bar chart that draws itself for a video
How to animate a number counting up in a video

Not for

Build an interactive map for my website (use a web mapping skill; this one renders video)
Make a dashboard of our sales data (use a BI tool)
Generate background music for the chart video (use varg-ai (music))

Install

Claude Code: claude plugin marketplace add vargHQ/skills && claude plugin install varg@varg
Codex: npx skills add vargHQ/skills --skill maps-and-data-motion -a codex -y
Cursor: npx skills add vargHQ/skills --skill maps-and-data-motion -a cursor -y
OpenClaw: npx clawhub@latest install maps-and-data-motion
Gemini CLI: npx skills add vargHQ/skills --skill maps-and-data-motion -a gemini-cli -y
Any agent, with the vargai CLI: vargai install maps-and-data-motion

Example output

https://s3.varg.ai/files/72c55813-c0fa-4cf2-9f64-ec4f7ed0e7ae/file_b7ac8a5cafce.mp4 — example (credit: varg)

More numbers & charts skills

Big Stat Count-Up: One huge number counts from zero to its value and lands, with a short label under it.
Odometer Digit Roll: Each digit rolls on its own wheel to the target, places settling right to left like an odometer.
Bars Grow with Value Labels: Bars rise from the baseline in a staggered cascade with values riding their tops.
Line Draws with Riding Label: A line draws itself left to right while the current value rides the pen tip, ending on a dot and big label.
Ranked Bar Race: Ranked bars grow and overtake each other over time while the axis rescales and a year/date ticks.
Progress Ring Fills: A thin ring draws on to a percentage while the number in its center counts up in sync.