Method for the Analysis and Visualization of Similar Flow Hotspot Patterns between Different Regional Groups

Interaction among different regions can be illustrated in the form of a stream. For example, the interaction between the flows of people and information among different regions can reflect city network structures, as well as city functions and interconnections. The popularization of big data has facilitated the acquisition of flow data for various types of individuals. The application of the regional interaction model, which is based on the summary level of individual flow data mining, is currently a hot research topic. Thus far, however, previous research on spatial interaction methods has mainly focused on point-to-point and area-to-area interaction patterns, and investigations on the patterns of interaction hotspots between two regional groups with predefined neighborhood relationships, that being with two regions, remain scarce. In this study, a method for the identification of similar interaction hotspot patterns between two regional groups is proposed, and geo-information Tupu methods are applied to visualize interaction patterns. China’s air traffic flow data are used as an example to illustrate the performance of the proposed method to identify and analyze interaction hotspot patterns between regional groups with adjoining relationships across China. Research results indicate that the proposed method efficiently identifies the patterns of interaction flow hotspots between regional groups. Moreover, it can be applied to analyze any flow space in the excavation of the patterns of regional group interaction hotspots.