Density Map Interpretation

Ed_

Hello,

I created a `Hotspot` and a `Density` in Insights desktop based on tree count. I used the default settings to create the `Density` map. 

My question is based on the screenshot below, what are the legend values in `Density` map on the right telling me?

 

Scott_Aulen

The Calculate Density tool uses a kernel density calculation to create a density surface from your point features.

Generally speaking, it breaks down your extent into equal size squares, performs a radius search from the center of each square and then tells you how many points are in the search radius for each square. From there it's classifying the data into bins.

For example:

Let's say I want to take a look at the number of accidents within a .25 mile radius. I set the search radius to .25 and use the default for cell size. The cell size is primarily impacting the granularity of your visualization and you could change it something else depending on your map scale or performance concerns.

 

What this is telling me now is that the highest symbology bin is representing between 226 and 253 accidents in a .25 mile radius.

For your example you would need to know the units that were used for the search radius which can be found by flipping the card over and viewing the statistics.

 

The heat map symbology is a great quick and easy visualization that will change dynamically based on map scale whereas calculate density allows you to visualize patterns while also providing quantifiable contextual value and is set at a specified scale.