Candle heatmap mode: shading zoomed-out bars by volume or delta
Heatmap candles shade each bar body by how much it traded, or by the size of its delta, so the bars that mattered stand out when the chart is zoomed out to candle mode. The setting lives at the bottom of the Footprint type popover and defaults to Off.
Senzoukria · Documentation · Updated September 2026
Where to find it
- Where
- Chart toolbar → Footprint type chip → Heatmap candles (Off / Volume / Delta)
- Default
- Off
- Opacity floor
- 18 % of full opacity for the quietest bar
What it does
When the chart is zoomed out past the footprint thresholds it draws candles instead of cells. With Heatmap candles set to Volume, each body's opacity is proportional to the bar's total volume; with Delta, to the absolute value of its delta. The hint in the popover reads: bar bodies fade with how much the bar traded, so the ones that mattered stand out and quiet ones step back.
The normalisation uses the visible candles only, not the whole history, so a single opening spike does not flatten an entire afternoon. The forming bar is excluded from the maximum and its opacity is capped at 1: its volume grows on every tick and would otherwise rescale every closed bar continuously. The quietest bar keeps a floor of 18 % opacity so that low activity is still distinguishable from no bar at all.
Settings
| Setting | Default | What it changes |
|---|---|---|
| Heatmap candles | Off | Off keeps flat bodies; Volume shades by total volume; Delta shades by |delta|. |
| Footprint enter threshold | ≥ 78 px per bar and ≤ 96 visible bars | Above this the chart draws cells; heatmap shading then applies to the bar state background instead of the body. |
| Footprint exit threshold | < 62 px per bar or > 104 visible bars | Below this the chart draws candles; the hysteresis prevents flicker between modes. |
| Candle body width | 1 − 3 / pixels per bar, clamped to 50–80 % | The gap between bodies stays about 3 px; the outline is drawn at every width. |
How to use it
- Use Volume to spot the bars that carried the session's activity when reviewing a day at 1-minute resolution; use Delta to spot the bars where one side dominated regardless of size.
- In footprint mode the same setting shades the per-bar state background with the same 18 % floor, so switching between zoom levels keeps the same read.
- Wicks are drawn only outside the body in heatmap mode. A translucent body would otherwise reveal the wick running through it as a meaningless vertical line.
- The colours of the bodies remain the Candle body up/down colours from the Visual Settings tab; only the opacity changes.
Limits and performance
The shading reflects the volume unit reported by the source (contracts on futures, base or notional units on crypto feeds depending on the feed); comparing intensities across instruments or sources is not meaningful. A partially loaded session shades against what is loaded.
Bars are converted into footprint candles incrementally: only a bar whose content changed (volume, trade count, OHLC, delta, delta extremes, level count or level bounds) is reconverted, and unchanged bars keep their object so indicator caches keyed on the candle array stay valid. A change of the cell imbalance settings clears this cache and reconverts everything. This is what keeps the zoomed-out view responsive on several days of 1-minute bars.
Related pages
- Footprint cell types
- Cell colours, text and footprint layer
- Volume study
- Bar delta study
- Footprint charts
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Frequently asked questions
- Why does the last bar look fully opaque even when it is small?
- The forming bar is excluded from the normalisation and capped at full opacity; it saturates when it becomes the largest visible bar. Closed bars are shaded against the maximum of the other visible bars.
- Why does the shading change when I scroll?
- The maximum is taken over the visible candles only. Scrolling a larger bar into view rescales the others; this is intended so the local session stays readable.
- Does Heatmap candles affect the cells in footprint mode?
- It shades the bar's state background with the same floor; the cell layouts (Heatmap Volume, Heatmap Trades, Heatmap Delta) are a separate choice in the same popover.