Heatmap Tools For Web Apps

Question

I have a client that want to have a web app I'm building for them display heat maps of the data.

I haven't worked with heat maps at all and I was wondering if anyone knew of some good tools for generating them.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Heat maps are often used in place of a more conventional term: kernel density estimators. If you need to compute these on the fly, consider GRASS GIS- specifically, the v.kernel or v.neighbors modules. These will generate a continuous estimate (i.e. raster surface) of density, at some target resolution (defined by the current region settings). GRASS GIS can be controlled via Python code, so it would be a simple matter to write a Python wrapper around the underlying modules, that could export the results to your web application.

For small datasets, the R project has several functions for reading/writing spatial data, and computing kernel density estimates.

Answer 2

I realize this is an old, old post -- but the next guy to stumble across this page might try gheat for heatmaps in webapps. There are ports for Django and Google App Engine, if you happen to be using those backends.