Telecoms - Display Cell Tower KPIs in Icon Map Pro

September 27, 2025 · 6 min read

Co-founder of Tekantis

A common use case for our telecoms customers is to show cell tower locations, using wedge diagrams, to represent various information and KPIs. This blog shows a repeatable approach for achieving this using Icon Map Pro.

Icon Map Pro showing cell tower KPIs as wedges

Consider our source data:

SiteID	CellID	Latitude	Longitude	Azimuth	Beamwidth	Throughput
SITE_1	CELL_1_2	51.5104471707975	-0.143399762	0	65	10
SITE_1	CELL_1_2	51.5104471707975	-0.143399762	90	65	10
SITE_1	CELL_1_3	51.5104471707975	-0.143399762	180	90	6
SITE_1	CELL_1_4	51.5104471707975	-0.143399762	270	90	6
SITE_2	CELL_2_1	51.519405119581	-0.113691529	0	45	10
SITE_2	CELL_2_2	51.519405119581	-0.113691529	90	90	10
SITE_2	CELL_2_3	51.519405119581	-0.113691529	180	45	6
SITE_2	CELL_2_4	51.519405119581	-0.113691529	270	45	6
SITE_3	CELL_3_1	51.5178896481135	-0.147332693	0	60	10
SITE_3	CELL_3_2	51.5178896481135	-0.147332693	90	60	10
SITE_3	CELL_3_3	51.5178896481135	-0.147332693	180	90	6
SITE_3	CELL_3_4	51.5178896481135	-0.147332693	270	90	6
SITE_4	CELL_4_1	51.5086784040137	-0.132543639	0	65	10
SITE_4	CELL_4_2	51.5086784040137	-0.132543639	180	65	6
SITE_5	CELL_5_1	51.5072231988425	-0.140595659	0	60	10
SITE_5	CELL_5_2	51.5072231988425	-0.140595659	120	45	10
SITE_5	CELL_5_3	51.5072231988425	-0.140595659	240	65	6
SITE_6	CELL_6_1	51.5161939797486	-0.126133127	0	90	6
SITE_6	CELL_6_2	51.5161939797486	-0.126133127	120	60	6
SITE_6	CELL_6_3	51.5161939797486	-0.126133127	240	90	6

We have 6 sites, each with a number of sectors (cells), located using latitude and longitude. Each sector has its azimuth (the central pointing direction of the antenna, measured clockwise from true north) and its beamwidth (the angular width of the main lobe). We also include the current throughput KPI for each cell. We’re going to use this throughput value to drive the wedge coloring.

To show the wedge symbols for each site, we're going to construct an SVG for each location. This is a great opportunity to use a new feature in Power BI - DAX User Defined Functions (UDFs). However, at the time of writing, this is a preview feature, so we need to ensure it's enabled in Power BI's preview features settings:

Power BI Preview Features Dialog Showing the Location of the User Defined Functions setting

You will need to restart Power BI Desktop after enabling this feature.

With this enabled, we can now use Power BI's DAX view to paste in our UDFs.

Location of DAX view in Power BI Desktop

Our main UDF generates a single wedge as an SVG path. We also have a couple of other functions to ensure our SVG is rendered correctly as a data URL to include in the map.

DEFINE
    FUNCTION RFWedgePath = (
    minRadius: DOUBLE, maxRadius: DOUBLE, azimuth: DOUBLE, beamWidth: DOUBLE,
    fill: STRING, stroke: STRING, strokeWidth: DOUBLE,
    vbw: DOUBLE, vbh: DOUBLE
  ) =>

VAR cx = DIVIDE(vbw, 2)
VAR cy = DIVIDE(vbh, 2)

VAR r0 = minRadius
VAR r1 = maxRadius

VAR a0 = azimuth - beamWidth / 2
VAR a1 = azimuth + beamWidth / 2

VAR rad0 = RADIANS(a0)
VAR rad1 = RADIANS(a1)

VAR x0o = cx + r1 * COS(rad0)
VAR y0o = cy - r1 * SIN(rad0)
VAR x1o = cx + r1 * COS(rad1)
VAR y1o = cy - r1 * SIN(rad1)

VAR sweep    = 0
VAR largeArc = IF( ABS(a1 - a0) > 180, 1, 0 )

VAR dPath =
    IF(
      r0 <= 0,
      "M " & NumText(x0o) & " " & NumText(y0o) &
      " A " & NumText(r1) & " " & NumText(r1) & " 0 " & largeArc & " " & sweep & " " &
             NumText(x1o) & " " & NumText(y1o) &
      " L " & NumText(cx)  & " " & NumText(cy) & " Z",
      VAR x1i = cx + r0 * COS(rad1)
      VAR y1i = cy - r0 * SIN(rad1)
      VAR x0i = cx + r0 * COS(rad0)
      VAR y0i = cy - r0 * SIN(rad0)
      RETURN
      "M " & NumText(x0o) & " " & NumText(y0o) &
      " A " & NumText(r1) & " " & NumText(r1) & " 0 " & largeArc & " " & sweep & " " &
             NumText(x1o) & " " & NumText(y1o) &
      " L " & NumText(x1i) & " " & NumText(y1i) &
      " A " & NumText(r0) & " " & NumText(r0) & " 0 " & largeArc & " " & (1 - sweep) & " " &
             NumText(x0i) & " " & NumText(y0i) & " Z"
    )

RETURN
  "<path d='" & dPath & "' fill='" & fill & "' stroke='" & stroke &
  "' stroke-width='" & NumText(strokeWidth) & "' />"

DEFINE
    FUNCTION NumText = (n: DOUBLE) =>
VAR t = FORMAT(n,"0.########")
RETURN IF(RIGHT(t,1)=".", LEFT(t,LEN(t)-1), t)


DEFINE
    FUNCTION UrlEncodeSvg = ( raw : STRING ) =>
    SUBSTITUTE(
        SUBSTITUTE(
            SUBSTITUTE(
                SUBSTITUTE(
                    SUBSTITUTE(
                        SUBSTITUTE(
                            raw,
                            " ", "%20"
                        ),
                        "#", "%23"
                    ),
                    """", "%22"
                ),
                "<", "%3C"
            ),
            ">", "%3E"
        ),
        "'", "%27"
    )

Paste this into the DAX query window and press the "Update model with changes (3)" button.

Screenshot showing the Update model with changes button

We now have a reusable set of functions that we can call from inside a DAX measure.

However, before we generate our tower SVG, we're going to create a quick DAX measure to determine the wedge colors based on the Throughput value.

Add the following measure:

KPI Color = 
VAR t = SELECTEDVALUE('Cells'[Throughput])
RETURN
SWITCH(
    TRUE(),
    ISBLANK(t),              "#BDBDBD",   -- no data: grey
    t <= 2,                  "#d73027",   -- red
    t <= 4,                  "#fc8d59",
    t <= 6,                  "#fee08b",
    t <= 8,                  "#d9ef8b",
    t <= 10,                 "#91cf60",
                              "#1a9850"   -- >10: green
)

Now we're ready to add our measure to generate the SVGs. This measure will aggregate the cells belonging to a site and generate a combined SVG symbol for that site:

Site Symbol = 
VAR width       = 300
VAR height      = 300
VAR strokeColor = "#000000"
VAR strokeWidth = 4
VAR minRadius   = 18
VAR maxRadius   = 140

VAR paths =
    CONCATENATEX(
        'Cells',       
        RFWedgePath(
            minRadius, maxRadius,
            'Cells'[Azimuth],
            'Cells'[Beamwidth],
            [KPI Color],   
            strokeColor, strokeWidth,
            width, height
        ),
        ""        
    )

RETURN
"data:image/svg+xml;utf8," &
UrlEncodeSvg(
    "<svg xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2000/svg' viewBox='0 0 " & NumText(width) & " " & NumText(height) & "'>" &
      paths &
    "</svg>"
)

It generates a series of paths, one for each cell, and then wraps them up in an SVG tag. We then use our new UrlEncodeSvg function to URL Encode the SVG and create it as a data URL.

We're now ready to configure Icon Map Pro to show our cell tower locations.

The data configuration is straightforward. The ID field in Icon Map Pro should represent the granularity of each item we want on the map, which in this case is a cell tower site, so add the Site ID to Icon Map Pro's ID field. Then drag in the longitude and latitude. Ensure the aggregation type is Average. This will make sure the longitude and latitude stays the same for each site. Then drag our new Site Symbol measure to the Image / WKT field:

Icon Map Pro field configuration

The final step is to turn on the Image Data Layer in Icon Map Pro's settings:

Icon Map Pro Settings configuration

Your map should now look like this:

Resulting Map

You can download the .pbix file to see this in action.

These same functions can be used to draw more complicated diagrams by varying the min and max radius settings:

More complicated examples