Non-Uniform Gaussian Blur of Hexagonal Bins in Cartesian Coordinates

TL;DR

This paper presents a method for applying non-uniform Gaussian blur to hexagonally binned data in Cartesian coordinates, addressing a gap in existing visualization tools, with practical examples and discussion of benefits.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach for smoothing hexagonal bin data in Cartesian coordinates, specifically tailored for Bokeh visualizations, which was previously undocumented.

Findings

Method successfully applied to real-world data

Enhanced visualization clarity with hexagonal bins

Potential advantages include better data representation

Abstract

In a recent application of the Bokeh Python library for visualizing physico-chemical properties of chemical entities text-mined from the scientific literature, we found ourselves facing the task of smoothing hexagonally binned data in Cartesian coordinates. To the best of our knowledge, no documentation for how to do this exist in the public domain. This short paper shows how to accomplish this in general and for Bokeh in particular. We illustrate the method with a real-world example and discuss some potential advantages of using hexagonal bins in these and similar applications.