Shape Map - Still available after Azure Maps replaces Map/Filled Map?

[pbrad]

As of August 2023, the Shape Map (Preview) documentation has a note stating "In a future release, Power BI plans to deprecate older map visuals and migrate existing reports to Azure Maps. You can convert maps and filled maps to Azure Maps visuals now." The conversion documentation only refers to Maps and Filled Maps, but does not mention Shape Maps. Does anyone know if Shape Maps will still be available after Power BI fully migrates to Azure Maps?  It doesn't look like Azure Maps offers the same functionality of Shape Maps - specifically the ability to load a custom TopoJSON file and use it without having to connect to an external location service like Bing Maps.

Thank you!

[lbendlin]

Fair observation. Thankfully there are plenty of alternatives for vector maps and choropleths, including those that support WGS84 and various projections.

[pbrad]

Thanks @lbendlin . Are there any alternatives you would recommend? I am mainly displaying sociodemographic data via choropleths for US counties and CBSAs. The standard Filled Map (and from what I've seen so far from Azure Maps) is too slow when loading many geographies at once (e.g., all counties in the US). Shape Maps have been helpful, as I don't need the external location services.  I appreciate your thoughts.

[lbendlin]

https://vega.github.io/vega-lite/examples/#maps-geographic-displays