Fire Hexbin Maker

What is Fire Hexbin Maker?

Fire Hexbin Maker is a vibe-coded web-based tool that converts point data (like fire locations) into hexagonal grid visualizations.

Please, check your outputs. You know those LLMs can never be trusted.

How it Works

Disclaimer: This description was written by an AI agent and revised by humans. 🤖

1. Upload Your Data

• Upload a CSV file containing latitude and longitude coordinates
• The tool supports up to 500,000 data points
• Your CSV must have columns named 'latitude' and 'longitude' (case-insensitive)
• Coordinates should be numeric: latitude (-90 to 90), longitude (-180 to 180)

2. Select Your Area

• Draw a rectangle on the map to define your analysis area
• Or upload a GeoJSON file with custom boundaries
• Only points within this area will be processed

3. Configure Hexagons and Bins

• Hexagon Size: Choose H3 resolution level (0-15)
  • Level 0 = largest hexagons (continental scale)
  • Level 15 = smallest hexagons (building scale)
• Color Bins: Define how to group hexagons by point count
  • Set points per category (e.g., 10 points per bin)
  • Set total number of color categories (e.g., 10 bins)
  • Preview shows how your data will be colored

4. Preview and Download

• See your hexagon map with color-coded bins
• View a histogram showing data distribution
• Download as a single GeoJSON file or separate files per bin
• Files include metadata about your processing parameters

Processing Steps

Data Validation

• Validates CSV format and required columns
• Checks coordinate ranges and data types
• Filters out invalid or missing coordinates
• Reports data quality issues to the user

Spatial Filtering

• Applies user-defined geographic boundaries
• Uses point-in-polygon algorithms for custom areas
• Supports both rectangular and complex polygon boundaries
• Only processes points within the selected area

H3 Hexagon Assignment

• Converts latitude/longitude coordinates to H3 hexagon indices
• Uses the selected resolution level to determine hexagon size
• Groups all points within each hexagon
• Counts the number of points per hexagon

Binning and Color Assignment

• Creates user-defined bins based on point counts
• Assigns each hexagon to a color category

Output Generation

• Creates GeoJSON features for each hexagon
• Generates histogram data for distribution analysis
• Provides both single-file and multi-file download options. Single-file is useful for custom choropleth maps on Datawrapper, while multi-file is useful for locator maps.

Technical Details

• Hexagon System: Uses Uber's H3 geospatial indexing system
• Color Scale: Viridis color palette (colorblind-friendly)
• File Format: GeoJSON output
• Performance: Optimized for datasets up to 500,000 points

Browser Compatibility

Works in modern browsers with JavaScript enabled. No installation required - just upload your data and start visualizing.