Visualize data density and histograms with heat maps

Classic dashboards have their own panels and methods of configuring them. For details about panels 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.

For details about the configuration options common to all panels, see Panels.

Add a heat map to a dashboard

Use one of the following methods to add a heat map to a dashboard. Heat maps accept metric queries only.

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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.

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.

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.

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.

⚠️

Observability Platform doesn't fully support directly editing a panel's JSON representation and recommends configuring panels in the user interface. Use the JSON representation only for managing your configuration as code with tools such as Chronoctl and Terraform.

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 as 100M. You can toggle this setting only if you set the Unit to Decimal or Bytes; Time units are always abbreviated and Percent values don't require it. Defaults to true.
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 as 1M.
- Bytes: As decimal multiple-byte units. Observability Platform renders a value of 1000000 as 1MB.
- 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 of 120 as 120 nanoseconds and renders it as 120ns. If you select Days, Observability Platform interprets the same value as 120 days and renders it as 4 months.
  
  The available Time units are Nanoseconds, Microseconds, Milliseconds, Seconds, Minutes, Hours, Days, Weeks, Months, and Years.
- 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) as 100%, and in Percent (0-100) as 1%.
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 to 4 render the corresponding number of decimal places.
Label: Renders the given text vertically next to the Y axis. Defaults to no value.

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