Displaying a kernel density estimate

Question & Answer
1

If you have a lot “spikey” histograms, a kernel density estimate to smooth it out is really nice. When I’m using matplotlib I just add kde=True and it’s done. As far as I can tell, there’s no simple way of creating this on any visual in Quicksight. (I would be so happy if this could get on a roadmap somewhere…)

My options at the moment:

  • I can create a KDE in python with matplotlib, store the result in s3 and use a URL viewer. Downside: can’t do any filtering this way, unless I pre-compute a graph for every slice I’ll every plan to use. (And even then, how would I get the right image displayed in quicksight?)

  • I can create a view in postgresql. I tried doing this initially, but the SQL to create a kernel density estimate is pretty hideous and doesn’t compute very quickly.

Any other ideas or suggestions of how I can make it happen?

2

They added this feature for line charts.

image
image2597×1333 219 KB

Is this something you are looking for?

3

That looks line interpolation using (? splines ?), which makes sense if you have continuous x and continuous y. i.e. you have a line chart and you want to make it smoother.

A kernel density estimate smooths out a histogram.