Data Modeling: Self-Organizing Maps (1 of 2)
Objects can be characterized by numerous features. Self-Organizing Maps (SOM), or similarity maps, reduce these large number of features into a two dimensional map to ease interpretation. The SOM training algorithm is an unsupervised classification algorithm.
The example below uses nesting and habitat data of North American birds. The "SOM" image is simply the map of clusters of different bird species. Every subsequent image is one of the components of the nesting data. Red clusters are high values, indicating the presence of the feature. Dark blue indicates the absence. Intermediate colors show that cluster averages are somewhere in between.
See also the Nutrition SOM.
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