Basic styling

Layer styling allows you to customize the visual appearance of your data to create clear, appealing maps. GOAT automatically assigns default styles based on your data type (points, lines, or polygons), but you can customize colors, strokes, opacity, and other visual properties.

How to style your layers

1

Select your layer and navigate to Layer design and find the Style section

2

Choose the styling category you want to modify: Fill color, Stroke color, Stroke width, Clustering, Custom Marker and Point settings (if point data).

Fill color

Fill color defines the interior appearance of point and polygon features.

3

On Color use the Color picker to select your color or the Preset colors to choose from the predefined color palette.

4

Use the opacity slider or enter a value between 0 (transparent) and 1 (opaque) to control transparency.

Stroke color

Stroke color applies to the outlines and edges of map features. It helps distinguish features and enhance their visibility.

5

On Color use the Color picker or the Preset colors to customize stroke appearance.

Stroke width

6

On Stroke width move the slider to adjust the thickness of lines and feature outlines.

Clustering

Clustering groups nearby point features into a single marker with a count, keeping the map readable when many points overlap.

7

Enable the Clustering toggle to activate clustering for your point layer.

8

Use the Cluster radius slider to control how close points need to be to merge into a cluster. A larger radius groups more points together.

9

Optionally, expand Advanced Options to further configure Min cluster size, Max zoom to cluster, Cluster color, and Text color.

Custom markers

For point layers, you can use custom markers instead of basic shapes.

10

In the styling menu, turn on the Custom Marker toggle to enable custom markers

11

Click on Select Marker and browse the icon library or upload your own marker by clicking on the Custom tab and uploading your file (JPEG, PNG, or SVG format).

12

Name your icon (this name will be used for searching). You can later click on Manage icons to rename or delete uploaded icons

13

On Size adjust the marker size using the slider

info

You can only edit the color of icons from the library, not uploaded custom icons.

Point settings

14

Under Point settings, on Size adjust the radius using the slider or enter precise values in the text box for exact control.

Copy and paste style

The Layer Design panel has three quick-action icons at the top to manage styles across layers: Copy style, Paste style, and Set as default. This lets you apply a consistent look across multiple layers without reconfiguring each one manually.

1

Select the layer whose style you want to copy and open Layer design .

2

Click the Copy style icon at the top of the panel.

3

Select the target layer, open its Layer design panel, and click Paste style to apply the copied style.

4

Optionally, click Set as default to save the current style as the default for future uses of this dataset.

Smart styling

Explore attribute-based styling for advanced visualization options based on your data values.