See what you know: analyzing data distribution to improve density map visualization

Density maps allow for visually rendering density differences, usually mapping density values to a grey or color scale. The paper analyzes the drawbacks arising from the commonly used mapping strategies and introduces a novel technique able to improve the overall mapping process, presenting the user with an increased number of visual density differences. The proposed technique is driven by statistical knowledge about the density distribution and a set of quality metrics allows for validating, in an objective way, its effectiveness.