Areas of Interest (Areas) in Skylight allow you monitor areas more carefully, such as protected areas, buffers around an EEZ, etc.

User-created custom areas are also necessary for some functionalities in Skylight:

• Creating Saved Filters and Alerts 
• Generating Entry Events, Speed Range Events

Areas can also be used as a filter to only show (and download) data within a particular area.

Important: Areas larger than 1,000,000 sq km cannot be used to generate Entry or Speed Range events.

Area Creation

To start creating an area, click the shape tool icon () either on the left side of the map or under the Areas tab. 

Clicking the icon will reveal three 3 ways of creating an area: draw shape, enter coordinates, or upload a KML/KMZ file. Any area you create must be a single, closed polygon. You cannot add shapes like dots or lines.

Draw Shape

After clicking on “Draw Shape” start clicking on the map to add points to your shape. To finish, you can double click to close the polygon or click the first point. You must add a name before you can save the area. 

The video below shows an example of drawing a shape.

Enter Coordinates

You can use longitude/latitude coordinates (x, y) in the decimal system to create an area. When you are entering coordinates, separate the coordinates by a comma and enclose each pair with brackets like: [7.0001, 7.1234]. The first and last set of coordinates must also match to close the polygon and the entire set of brackets must be enclosed in triple brackets. If the coordinates have been entered correctly, the “Display” button will become available and you will be able to view your area on the map. Finally, enter the area name and a description to save this area.

Upload KML/KMZ File

The third option for creating an area is uploading a file in KML/KMZ format. This can be the most accurate representation of particular areas, especially official zones (EEZs, MPAs, etc.).

Click on “Choose file” to navigate to the file you want to upload. Then fill out a name and description to save the area. 

NOTE: The most common reasons that KML/KMZ files fail to upload is that they do not contain a single, closed polygon; or they are not under 20 KB in size (which is a polygon with maximum ~300 points).