How to create a heatmap from list of coordinates?

Question

I have a list of coordinates in form {{x1,y1},{x2,y2},...}

Is there a way in mma to builds density plots based on position ( ListDensityPlot calculates density based on value in {x,y,value})? I want to create something similar to heatmap.py.

Answer 1

There are two functions that can do this:

• DensityHistogram
• Histogram3D

These functions also come in a smoothed version (prepend Smooth to the name), which can be used to obtain results similar to what Heike plotted.

Edit

If you work in a regime where individual points are resolved, you may notice a disconcerting shift in the output of SmoothDensityHistogram (at least I see it on Mac OS X, MMA version 8.0.4):

data = RandomReal[1, {100, 2}];
Show[
 SmoothDensityHistogram[data, 0.015, "PDF",
  ColorFunction -> "Rainbow",
  Mesh -> 0,
  PlotRange -> {{0, 1}, {0, 1}}],
 Graphics[Point@data],
 PlotRange -> {{0, 1}, {0, 1}}
 ]

I only noticed this after looking at R.M.'s plot with the original points superimposed, as shown above.

To fix this and at the same time understand better what these smoothed histogram plots really do, you could take a look at the following function:

heatMap[data_, opts : OptionsPattern[]] := Module[
  {n, size, xRange, pr},
  n = "Points" /. {opts} /. {"Points" -> 100};
  pr = PlotRange /. {opts} /. {PlotRange :> 
      Map[{Min[#], Max[#]} &, Transpose[data]]};
  xRange = -Subtract @@ pr[[1]];
  size = Floor[
    n ("Radius" /. {opts} /. {"Radius" -> xRange/6})/xRange];
  Graphics[{
    Inset[
     ArrayPlot[
      Rescale@GaussianFilter[
        ImageData@ColorNegate@ColorConvert[
           Rasterize[Graphics[Point[data],
             Background -> White,
             PlotRangePadding -> 0,
             ImagePadding -> 0,
             ImageMargins -> 0,
             PlotRange -> pr],
            "Image", ImageSize -> n], "GrayScale"],
        {3 size, size}, Padding -> 0],
      ColorFunction ->  
       (ColorFunction /. {opts} /. 
        {ColorFunction -> 
         ColorData["LakeColors"]
        }
       ),
      ImagePadding -> 0,
      PlotRangePadding -> 0, Frame -> False],
     pr[[All, 1]], {0, 0}, xRange]},
   PlotRange -> pr, Frame -> True, PlotRangePadding -> Scaled[.02]
   ]
  ]

Show[heatMap[data, "Points" -> 300, "Radius" -> .02, 
  PlotRange -> {{0, 1}, {0, 1}}, 
  ColorFunction -> ColorData["Rainbow"]],
 Graphics[Point@data], 
 PlotRange -> {{0, 1}, {0, 1}}]

So I basically re-implemented this plotting function by using GaussianFilter, without trying to implement all the options provided by the built-in function.

The options it recognizes are "Points" (the number of sampling points in the horizontal direction), "Radius" (the radius of the Gaussian) and PlotRange.

Besides giving better alignment between the heat map and the points, this manual approach also could be used to do some non-standard things. For example, you could change Padding -> 0 to Padding -> "Periodic" if the data points live on a torus topology.

To show the dependence on the choice of radius, here is a movie:

Export["l.gif", 
 Join[#, Reverse[#]] &@
  Table[Show[
    heatMap[data, "Points" -> 300, "Radius" -> r^2, 
     PlotRange -> {{0, 1}, {0, 1}}], Graphics[Point@data], 
    PlotRange -> {{0, 1}, {0, 1}}],
   {r, .15, .25, .015}], "DisplayDurations" -> .1]

Edit

I forgot to add ColorFunction as an option - that's now done, with "LakeColors" as the default, as it is for SmoothDensityHistogram. There was also a Frame -> False missing in ArrayPlot, which I fixed in the code.

As an added bonus, plots created with heatMap take much less space when exported as PDF.

Answer 2

You can use SmoothDensityHistogram to generate heatmaps. This does the same as what Heike's method does, but in one line. Example:

data = RandomReal[1, {100, 2}];
SmoothDensityHistogram[data, 0.02, "PDF", ColorFunction -> "Rainbow", Mesh -> 0]

Answer 3

It looks like SmoothKernelDistribution might do the trick. For example

data = RandomReal[1, {100, 2}];

dist = SmoothKernelDistribution[data, .02]

DensityPlot[Evaluate[PDF[dist, {x, y}]], {x, 0, 1}, {y, 0, 1}, 
 PlotRange -> All, ColorFunction -> "SunsetColors", PlotPoints -> 40]