# Plot heatmaps

Aim

To create heatmaps from the tracks currently selected in the Data profile.

Procedure

1.Choose Analysis > Results > Plot Heatmaps, or in the Experiment Explorer, under Results, click Heatmap Visualization.

2.On the toolbar, choose the Track Smoothing profile and the Data profile that you want to use. The two profiles specify the set of samples to be used in the heatmaps.

3.In the Heatmap Settings pane, click the Show/Hide tab. Choose the Features (body points) and the Subjects to visualize.

4.Under Presets, click one of the buttons to arrange the layout. See Arrange heatmaps

Under Merging, specify how EthoVision should normalize data of different tracks when putting them in a single heatmap. See Merging method for heatmaps

5.Click the Plot Heatmaps button.

6. optional Customize the heatmaps .

7. optional Export the heatmaps .

Notes

▪By default, heatmaps are displayed with overlay text and without arena and zone outlines.

▪If your video image includes two or more arenas, the heatmap is calculated across arenas, not per individual arena. This means that, if the track in one arena has fewer samples than the track in another arena, the heatmap in the first arena is less likely to show high-density colors. For example:

This is generally not a problem in DanioVision or PhenoTyper experiments because the track duration is comparable between arenas. For other setups, compare heatmaps from different arenas only when the duration of the tracks is more or less the same, or export the tracks and create the heatmaps in an external application.

▪If you want to know where a behavior occurs, in your Data profile nest over that behavior (see Nesting over behaviors scored manually or Nesting over behaviors of Rat/Mouse Behavior Recognition), and then plot the heatmaps.

▪When you combine tracks from different arena settings, the corresponding heatmaps may have different size and aspect ratios. The tracks are first aligned at the upper-left corner before they are combined. Therefore, a specific point in the combined heatmap may represent different locations for different tracks.