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### A.4.7 Density Map

Density map window in RGB mode

The density map window plots a 2-dimensional density map of one or more pairs of table columns (or derived quantities); the colour of each pixel displayed is determined by the number of points in the data set which fall within its bounds. Another way to think of this is as a histogram on a 2-dimensional grid, rather than a 1-dimensional one as in the Histogram Window. You can optionally weight these binned counts with another value from the table.

Density maps are suitable when you have a very large number of points to plot, since in this case it's important to be able to see not just whether there is a point at a given pixel, but how many points fall on that pixel. To a large extent, the transparency features of the other 2d and 3d plotting windows address this issue, but the density map gives you a bit more control. It can also export the result as a FITS image, which can then be processed or viewed using image-specific software such as GAIA or Aladin.

This window can be operated in two modes:

Indexed Mode
  Each pixel represents a single scalar value, corresponding to a count or sum as indicated by the selected dataset(s). If multiple datasets are being plotted at once, the values from each will be summed to give the result at each point. The mapping from numeric value to pixel colour at each point on the plot is determined by the colour map selected in the Indexed Colours selector below the plot. In this case the style editor colour selectors have no effect and are disabled. A fairly wide range of colour maps is provided by default. If these do not suit your needs, it is possible to provide your own custom colour maps using the lut.files system property - see Section 10.2.3.
RGB Mode
  Each pixel has up to three independent contributions, its intensity in Red, Green and Blue channels. These can come from different datasets, as configured in the style editor. If more than one dataset is assigned the same colour, the contributions are summed for that channel. In this case the Indexed Colours colour map selector has no effect and is disabled.

Switch between the modes using the RGB () button.

You can configure the axes, including zooming in and out, with the mouse (drag on the plot or the axes) or manually as described in Appendix A.4.1.2.

Two controls specific to this window are shown below the plot itself:

Cut Percentile Levels
  This controls how the number of counts in each pixel maps to a brightness. There are two sliders, one for the lower bound and one for the upper bound. They are labelled (logarithmically) with percentile values. If the upper one is set to 90, it means that any pixel above the 90th percentile of the pixels in the image in terms of count level will be shown with maximum brightness, and similarly for the lower one. These values apply independently to each colour channel if more than one is in use. Immediately below the sliders, the pixel values which correspond to minimum and maximum brightness are displayed. In indexed mode there is one range, and in RGB mode there may be up to three. If the image is not fairly completely covered, this control doesn't give you as much freedom as you might like - the user interface may be improved in future releases.
Indexed Colours
  When in indexed (non-RGB) mode only, this allows you to select a colour map which determines how pixel values (counts or sums per bin) are turned into colours on the screen. The lowest value corresponds to the colour at the left side of the icon and the highest value to the right side. In RGB mode this is disabled.

The following buttons are available on the toolbar:

Split Window
  Allows the dataset selector to be resized by dragging a separator between it and the plot area. Good for small screens.
Replot
  Redraws the current plot. It is usually not necessary to use this button, since if you change any of the plot characteristics with the controls in this window the plot will be redrawn automatically. However if you have changed the data, e.g. by editing cells in the Data Window, the plot is not automatically redrawn (since this is potentially an expensive operation and you may not require it). Clicking this button redraws the plot taking account of any changes to the table data.
Configure Axes and Title
  Pops up a dialogue to allow manual configuration of axis ranges, axis labels and plot title - see Appendix A.4.1.2.
Export as PDF
  Pops up a dialogue which will write the current plot as a PDF file.
Export as GIF
  Pops up a dialogue which will output the current plot to a GIF file. The output file is just the same as the plotted image that you see. Resize the plotting window before the export to control the size of the output GIF.
Export as FITS
  Pops up a dialogue which will output the plotted map as a FITS array. If only one channel is visible (either one colour channel or indexed mode) then the output FITS file will be a 2d array with dimensions the same as the displayed image. If there are multiple RGB channels then the output array will be 3d with the third dimension having an extent of 2 or 3, depending on the number of colour channels visible. In either case the FITS file will have a single (primary) HDU. Basic coordinate system information, as well as DATAMIN and DATAMAX cards, will be written to the header. The type of the output array will be double precision for weighted values, or some integer type of sufficient length for unweighted ones.
Rescale
  Rescales the axes of the current plot so that it contains all the data points in the currently selected subsets. By default the plot will be scaled like this, but it it may have changed because of changes in the subset selection or from zooming in or out.
Log Intensity
  Toggles between linear and logarithmic mapping for colour intensity as a function of number of counts.
Colour
  Toggles between indexed and RGB modes (see the explanation above).
Show Legend
  Toggles whether a legend showing how each data set is represented is visible to the right of the plot. Initially the legend is shown only if more than one data set is being shown at once.
Bigger Pixels
  Increments the size of screen pixel corresponding to one density map bin.
Smaller Pixels
  Decrements the size of screen pixel corresponding to one density map bin.
Draw Subset Region
  Allows you to draw a region on the screen defining a new Row Subset. When you have finished drawing it, click this button again to indicate you're done. See Appendix A.4.1.6 for more details.
Subset From Visible
  Defines a new Row Subset consisting of only the points which are currently visible on the plotting surface. See Appendix A.4.1.6 for more explanation.

The Dataset Toolbar contains the following options:

/ Add/Remove dataset
  Adds/removes tabs in which the data for extra datasets can be entered. See Appendix A.4.1.1.
Weight Counts
  If this toggle button is on, an additional Weight Axis selector appears below the X Axis selector. If this is filled in with a column name or expression, then instead of simply accumulating the number of points per bin, each pixel will represent the sum over the weighting quantity for points in each bin. Not having a weight axis is equivalent to filling in its value with the quantity 1. Note that with weighting, the figure drawn is no longer strictly speaking a histogram or density map.

The Export menu provides a number of ways to export the displayed image for external viewing or analysis. As well as options to export as GIF, JPEG, EPS and FITS, there is also the option to transmit the FITS image to one or all applications listening using the SAMP or PLASTIC tool interoperability protocol which will receive images. In this way you can transmit the image directly to SAMP/PLASTIC-aware image manipulation tools such as GAIA or Aladin. See Section 9 for more information about tool interoperability.

How to set the colour channel corresponding to each dataset is explained in the following subsection.

- A.4.7.1 Density Style Editor

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TOPCAT - Tool for OPerations on Catalogues And Tables
Starlink User Note253
TOPCAT web page: http://www.starlink.ac.uk/topcat/
Author email: m.b.taylor@bristol.ac.uk
Mailing list: topcat-user@bristol.ac.uk