Visualize data density and histograms with heat maps
Classic dashboards have their own panels and methods of configuring them. For details on heat maps in classic dashboards, see Classic dashboard panels.
A heat map visualizes the density of data points across values returned by a query. Heat maps depict several ranges of values, referred to as buckets, as colored segments for each time recorded in data points. The color of each bucket corresponds to the number of data points whose values are inside of that bucket's range. Colors typically fall in a gradient where the number of data points in a bucket correspond to that bucket color's intensity in the heat map.
Heat maps are especially well suited to visualize histograms, which collect data points into buckets of values. Chronosphere Observability Platform supports visualizing Prometheus histograms and exponential histograms as heat maps.
This feature isn't available to all Chronosphere Observability Platform users and might not be visible in your app. For information about enabling this feature in your environment, contact Chronosphere Support.
For details about the configuration options common to all panels, see Panels.
Add a heat map to a dashboard
To add a heat map panel to a standard dashboard:
- Add a panel to a dashboard.
- In the Add Panel interface, click the Type dropdown and select Heat map.
- Add a query to the panel.
- Click the Add button to add the panel to the dashboard and close the Add Panel interface.
- Optional: On the dashboard, click Save to save the new panel to the dashboard.
Queries that return an extremely large number of data points or invalid results can result in panel errors. For example, a query might return an error for exceeding server resource limits, or it might have so many points to render that rendering could degrade your web browser's performance.
Observability Platform reports these errors with an icon that appears in the corner of the Preview pane of the Add panel or Edit panel interfaces, or on the panel when viewing it on the dashboard. Hold the pointer over the icon to view the error message.
Use a heat map's tooltip
When you hold the pointer over a bucket in a heat map, Observability Platform displays a tooltip that displays the bucket's value range and count of matching data points.
Configure a heat map
You can configure a heat map by modifying its Settings.
Any changes you make in the panel's Settings tab are immediately reflected in the Preview pane, but take effect only when you click Apply in the Edit panel interface and then Save the dashboard.
To modify a heat map's settings using its Settings tab:
- Edit the heat map panel.
- In the Edit panel interface, click the Settings tab.
The tab contains two sections:
- [Legend](#modify-a-heat maps-legend): Configures an optional legend that depicts how the heat map's color gradient corresponds to data point counts for a bucket.
- [Visual](#modify-a-heat maps-visual-representation): Configures the nature of the visualization, including its color palette and displayed value range.
- [Y Axis](#modify-a-heat maps-y-axis): Configures the heat map's optional Y axis.
To discard and revert all of the panel's settings to their defaults, click Reset to defaults.
Modify a heat map's legend
The Legend section in a heat map's Settings tab controls whether to display a legend alongside the heat map, and if so it also configures where and how it appears.
-
Show: Toggles whether to display the legend. Defaults to enabled.
-
Position: Selects whether to display the legend Below or to the Right of the heat map. Defaults to
Right
.Units, abbreviations, and decimal places configured in the Y axis settings also apply here.
Modify a heat map's visual representation
The Visual section in a heat map's Settings tab controls how Observability Platform visualizes data in the heat map.
- Color palette: Determines the heat map gradient's color palette. For example,
you can select Defaults
to
Orange->Red
. - Invert palette: Toggles whether to invert the mapping of the color palette
to data point counts. Defaults to
false
. - Min value: Optionally defines the minimum data point count to map to the lowest value in the color palette. Values smaller than the Min Value are still displayed using the color palette's lowest value. Defaults to the smallest value returned by the query.
- Max value: Optionally defines the maximum data point count to map to the highest value in the color palette. Values larger than the Max Value are still displayed using the color palette's highest value. Defaults to the largest value returned by the query.
- Hide zeros: Toggles whether to hide buckets that counted zero results matching
their corresponding values from the heatmap. Defaults to
true
.
Modify a heat map's Y axis
The Y axis section in a heat map's Settings tab controls whether Observability Platform renders a heat map's Y axis, and if so what information it includes.
These settings apply to all values on the heat map, including any values you enabled in its legend.
- Abbreviate: Toggles whether to abbreviate units on the Y axis. For example,
if you enable Abbreviate, Observation Platform renders a value of
100000000
as100M
. You can toggle this setting only if you set the Unit toDecimal
orBytes
;Time
units are always abbreviated andPercent
values don't require it. Defaults totrue
. - Unit: Defines the unit used to render the Y axis. This has the most significant
effect when you enable Abbreviate. Defaults to
Decimal
.-
Decimal: Base 10 values. Observability Platform renders a value of
1000000
as1M
. -
Bytes: As decimal multiple-byte units. Observability Platform renders a value of
1000000
as1MB
. -
Time: Determines the unit of time that Observability Platform uses to interpret a numeric value. The unit you select isn't necessarily the unit that Observability Platform displays.
For example, if you select
Nanoseconds
, Observability Platform interprets a numeric value of120
as 120 nanoseconds and renders it as120ns
. If you selectDays
, Observability Platform interprets the same value as 120 days and renders it as4 months
.The available Time units are
Nanoseconds
,Microseconds
,Milliseconds
,Seconds
,Minutes
,Hours
,Days
,Weeks
,Months
, andYears
. -
Percent: Interprets the value as a percentile, representing 0% to 100% on a range of either 0.0 to 1.0 (Percent (0.0-1.0)) or 0 and 100 (Percent (0-100)).
For example, Observability Platform renders a value of
1.0
in Percent (0.0-1.0) as100%
, and in Percent (0-100) as1%
.
-
- Decimals: Defines how many decimal places Observability Platform renders for
values. Default renders decimal places only if necessary and rounds to the
nearest value. Numeric values from
0
to4
render the corresponding number of decimal places. - Label: Renders the given text vertically next to the Y axis. Defaults to no value.