How to properly handle anti-meridian (International Date Line) crossings in Azure Maps route visualization?

Question

How to properly handle anti-meridian (International Date Line) crossings in Azure Maps route visualization?

Pranav Bilurkar 20

Background

I'm developing a shipping route visualization application using Azure Maps SDK 3.6.1 and encountering issues with routes that cross the International Date Line (±180° longitude). Unlike Google Maps and Bing Maps, Azure Maps doesn't automatically handle anti-meridian crossings (that's what I read in articles), causing route lines to span the entire world instead of showing the correct Pacific Ocean crossing.

Specific Issue

When GPS coordinates jump from near +180° to near -180° (or vice versa), Azure Maps draws a straight line spanning 359° of longitude instead of the shorter ~1° actual route segment.

Example coordinates from real shipping data:

Point A: longitude: -179.86°, latitude: -33.26°
Point B: longitude: 179.95°, latitude: -33.41°
Time difference: 1 hour (normal ship movement)
Actual movement: ~20 nautical miles eastward
Azure Maps displays: Line spanning almost entire world

What is the recommended Microsoft/Azure approach for handling International Date Line crossings in route visualization?
Does Azure Maps have any built-in utilities or methods for handling anti-meridian crossings
Are there plans to add automatic anti-meridian handling to Azure Maps SDK similar to other mapping platforms?

Expected Behavior

Routes crossing the International Date Line should display as short Pacific Ocean segments, not world-spanning lines, similar to how Google Maps and Bing Maps handle this automatically.

Thank you for any guidance!

VSawhney 1,295 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-14T13:16:14.9533333+00:00
Hello Pranav Bilurkar,

You're absolutely right—handling anti-meridian crossings in Azure Maps can be tricky, especially when visualizing routes that span from +180° to -180° longitude. Unlike Google Maps or Bing Maps, Azure Maps SDK (including version 3.6.1) doesn't automatically resolve these crossings, which can result in route lines stretching across the entire map instead of showing a short Pacific Ocean segment.

Here's what you can try to work around this issue:

Preprocess Route Coordinates: Detect when a route crosses the anti-meridian by checking for large jumps in longitude (e.g., from +179.95° to -179.86°). When such a jump is detected:

Split the route into two segments.

Normalize longitudes so that the route appears continuous. For example, convert -179.86° to 180.14° or vice versa depending on direction.

This avoids the SDK drawing a line across the globe.

Use GeoJSON LineString Segmentation: Azure Maps supports GeoJSON. You can break the route into multiple LineString segments and render them separately. This allows you to manually control how the route is drawn across the anti-meridian.

Custom Wrapping Logic: Implement logic in your application to:

Detect anti-meridian crossings.

Adjust coordinates to wrap around the map canvas.

Optionally, use modular arithmetic to keep longitudes within a normalized range (e.g., -180° to +180°).

Leverage Azure Maps Web SDK Events: Use the map.ready and map.load events to ensure your custom route rendering logic executes only after the map is fully initialized. This helps avoid rendering issues and ensures your logic is applied consistently.

Expected Azure Maps Improvement: As for built-in utilities to manage this, currently, there’s no mention in my resources about automatic handling for these crossings in future Azure Maps updates. It's worth checking the Azure Maps documentation periodically or providing feedback through official channels to request this feature.

Hope this helps!
Thank you!
VSawhney 1,295 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-15T15:04:24.78+00:00

Hello Pranav Bilurkar,

Following up to see if the responses were helpful. Please feel free to reach us if you have any further query.

Thank you!
Sneha Prabhu 0 Reputation points

2025-12-04T11:24:11.7233333+00:00

Hello.
I'm facing the same issue using Power BI Azure Maps visual. I tried the suggested workaround for anti-meridian crossings such as longitude normalization, splitting paths into segments, unwrapping longitudes (±360), and while these remove the world-spanning line, the route still renders incorrectly (points drawn out of sequence or in wrong locations). At this point it looks like a limitation or bug in the Power BI Azure Maps layer rather than a data issue. Could the team confirm whether there is a supported way to render segmented paths correctly in Power BI?

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VSawhney 1,295 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2025-08-15T15:04:24.78+00:00

Hello Pranav Bilurkar,

Following up to see if the responses were helpful. Please feel free to reach us if you have any further query.

Thank you!
Sneha Prabhu 0 Reputation points

2025-12-04T11:24:11.7233333+00:00

Hello.
I'm facing the same issue using Power BI Azure Maps visual. I tried the suggested workaround for anti-meridian crossings such as longitude normalization, splitting paths into segments, unwrapping longitudes (±360), and while these remove the world-spanning line, the route still renders incorrectly (points drawn out of sequence or in wrong locations). At this point it looks like a limitation or bug in the Power BI Azure Maps layer rather than a data issue. Could the team confirm whether there is a supported way to render segmented paths correctly in Power BI?

Answer 1

Azure Maps uses MapLibre (forked version of Mapbox) under the hood for rendering. With this in mind, there are a few different ways to get a line to cross the antemeridian:

You can use longitude values outside the -180/180 range. So if you have a line with two points with longitude values 170 and 210, it should cross the antemeridian when rendered.
The atlas.math namespace provides a couple of methods for modifying the geometry so that it crosses the antemeridian.

Function name	Returns	Description
`getPathDenormalizedAtAntimerian(LineString \| Position[])`	`Position[]`	Denormalizes path on antimeridian, this makes lines with coordinates on the opposite side of the antimeridian to always cross it. Note that the path crossing antimeridian will contain longitude outside of -180 to 180 range. See getPathSplitByAntimeridian when this is not desired.
`getPathSplitByAntimeridian(LineString \| Position[])`	`Position[][]`	Split path on antimeridian into multiple paths. See getPathDenormalizedAtAntimerian when this is not desired.
`getGeodesicPaths(LineString \| Position[], number)`	`Position[][]`	Takes an array of positions objects and fills in the space between them with accurately positioned positions to form an approximated Geodesic path broken by antimeridian into multiple sub-paths.
`getRegularPolygonPaths(Position \| Point, number, number, string \| DistanceUnits, number)`	`Position[][]`	Calculates an array of position objects that are an equal distance away from a central point to create a regular polygon broken by antimeridian into multiple sub-paths.

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How to properly handle anti-meridian (International Date Line) crossings in Azure Maps route visualization?

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