GNUPLOT: 2d multi-point histogram

Question

I have pairs of points with their weights:

#x  y  w
0.111342 0.478917 0.232487 
0.398107 1.79559 0.221714 
0.200731 2.58651 0.0776068 
0.0967412 1.49904 0.0645355 
6.17638 8.63101 0.715604 
0.306128 3.10917 0.0984595 
0.340707 3.19344 0.10669 
7.18627 8.59859 0.835751 
8.56 9.63894 0.888065 
5.14272 6.86074 0.749587 
0.747202 3.812 0.196013 
8.71891 10.1355 0.860232 
0.346714 1.45895 0.237647 
5.21932 8.84491 0.590094 
9.42138 12.2082 0.771725 
0.215627 2.42317 0.0889856 

How to build a beautiful 2d color bar graph image? I found a nice description of the density map , but I don't want to go through python. Am I there a way to use gnuplot scripts only?

Answer 1

It is best to use an external histogram tool, but you can achieve something similar in gnuplot through:

set pm3d at b      # draw on bottom, not as 3d surface
set view map       # don't do a 3-d looking plot
set dgrid 100,100  # grid of 100x100 pixels
splot 'dat.txt' w pm3d