FAQ: What Are the Tools Used to Create Heat Maps, Hot Spots, and Interpolation Surfaces in

Answer

In ArcMap, various tools are available to create heat maps, hot spots, and interpolation surfaces. Use the most appropriate tool depending on the input data and the desired output, as listed in the table below.

Toolbox	Toolset	Tools	Type of Surface
Spatial Analyst	Density	Kernel Density Line Density Point Density	Heat Map
Spatial Analyst	Interpolation	IDW Kriging Natural Neighbor Spline Spline with Barriers Topo to Raster Topo to Raster by File Trend	Interpolation
3D Analyst	Raster Interpolation	IDW Kriging Natural Neighbor Spline Spline with Barriers Topo to Raster Topo to Raster by File Trend	Interpolation
Geostatistical Analyst	Interpolation	Diffusion Interpolation with Barriers Empirical Bayesian Kriging Global Polynomial Interpolation IDW Kernel Interpolation With Barriers Local Polynomial Interpolation Radial Basis Functions	Interpolation
Spatial Statistics	Mapping Clusters	Cluster and Outlier Analysis (Anselin Local Moran's I) Hot Spot Analysis (Getis-Ord Gi*) Optimized Hot Spot Analysis Optimized Outlier Analysis	Hot Spot

Although heat maps, hot spots, and interpolation surfaces look similar and the terms used are interchangeable, the concept between these surfaces is different. The table below shows the comparison.

	Heat Map	Hot Spot	Interpolation
Definition	To visualize the spread of data. The measured quantity of an input layer is distributed throughout the landscape.	To define areas of high and low occurrences, and spatial outliers, based on statistical analysis.	To predict the values at locations where no data are available based on the sampled data.
Input	Point or line features	Point, line, or polygon features	Point features containing z-values (except for Topo to Raster and Topo to Raster by File)
Output	A floating-point raster layer	An output feature class containing the z-score and p-value	A raster layer
Extension	Spatial Analyst extension	Spatial Statistics extension	Spatial Analyst, 3D Analyst, or Geostatistical Analyst extension
Appearance	Color gradients are used to portray the clustering of data

Article ID:000022025

Software:

ArcMap

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What are the tools used to create heat maps, hot spots, and interpolation surfaces in ArcMap?

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