Power BI Blog: Treemap Improvements

Welcome back to this week’s edition of the Power BI blog series.  This week, we note the latest enhancements to the Treemap visual.

There have been significant enhancements to the Treemap visual recently, with three [3] new Tiling methods that improve layout options, plus new spacing controls to enhance the visual’s appearance and usability.  These features are aimed at offering better control and customisation, resulting in more precise Treemaps in Power BI.

Treemap visuals are powerful tools for data visualisation that allow users to represent hierarchical data through nested rectangles.  Each branch of the hierarchy is represented by a rectangle, which is then tiled with smaller rectangles representing sub-branches.  This structure allows for quick comparison of different category proportions.

To generate two-level Treemap visuals, ensure that both the Category and Details fields are enabled.  This allows you to visualise the hierarchical relationships between various categories and their subcategories in a clear and organised manner.

There are three [3] new Tiling methods:

1. Squarified: this method uses a squarified Treemap algorithm to prevent elongated rectangles, creating a balanced layout.  It arranges rectangles so their aspect ratios are close to squares, making size comparisons potentially easier.

2. Binary: this method continuously divides the chart area into two [2] sections whilst incrementally adding new rectangles / nodes creating a balanced and visually appealing Treemap.  Each hierarchy level further splits the space, resulting in an organised Treemap that adapts to the dataset’s structure.  It may produce different visual characteristics compared to squarified algorithm depending on the dataset.

3. Alternating (Columns, Rows): the alternating method clearly distinguishes categories by first splitting them by columns and then within each column by rows.  This method effectively organises datasets with numerous hierarchical levels.

This month’s update also introduces new spacing options to enhance the readability and appearance of the Treemap visual:

• Space between all nodes: this setting introduces gaps between adjacent nodes at all hierarchy levels, reducing clutter and improving clarity
• Space between groups: by adding extra space around each node group, this option visually separates different hierarchical groups, which helps to visually distinguish categories within the hierarchy.

In the meantime, please remember we offer training in Power BI which you can find out more about here.  If you wish to catch up on past articles, you can find all of our past Power BI blogs here.