Mapping Density and Spatial Interpolation Using ArcGIS Pro

Density Maps (or Heatmaps) and interpolated maps are raster grids created from a set of points. However, they are completely different things though they might look similar. A heatmap visualizes "hotspots" in the distribution of features on the map i.e. dense areas will be highlighted in a heatmap, based on the parameters (neighborhood) you use for processing it.

However the purpose of an interpolation is to estimate feature values at locations where no measurement data is available. If you would for example take a lot of temperature measurements in the field you can obviously not measure the temperature at every single location across the study area (i.e. you can't measure a continuous field). You would use the interpolation to estimate the temperature values between the measurement points. In this tutorial, we created a density map of swine lagoons in North Carolina and look at 2 different spatial interpolation routines to measure temperature across the state of North Carolina using ArcGIS Pro.