Standouts: the ranked groups of hexes every map can find

Which part of the map answers it best?

Every map in MapBees colors thousands of hexes - one hexagon each, about 350 m across (roughly 0.1 km²). That is a lot to read. Standouts do the reading for you: they find the groups of nearby hexes that answer the map's question most strongly, outline each group on the map and number them #1, #2, #3. Every map type has them, and each one ranks by what it measures.

A single hex can top a list by a fluke - one big shop, one odd count. A group of fifty neighboring hexes that all point the same way is a part of town you can name, visit and plan for. That is the difference between a top-ten list and a Standout.

Standouts

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The idea, in one sentence

A Standout is a ranked group of nearby hexes, outlined where it answers this map best. Three things follow from that sentence.

Where to click

Standouts are off until you ask for them. Next to the Map type picker, top left, sits a button called Standouts (on the Score map the same button is called Rank, because it also lists the top hexes). Open it and press Find Standouts.

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Every control in it does one job:

• Show turns the outlines on the map on and off.
• Top 8 each is how many Standouts to find at each end - from 2 to 50, with Custom for any number in between. A map with one end says Top 8.
• Rank, each on its own picks the ends. On Missing they are “▲ More than expected” and “▼ Fewer than expected”, both on by default; “≈ About as expected” is ranked only if you switch it on. On Fair share the same chips read “More than its fair share” and “Less than its fair share”.
• Max size is the largest a Standout may grow, from 1.4 km to 10 km across. It is a ceiling, not a target.
• Find Standouts runs it; once there is a result the button reads Refresh Standouts.

Standouts do not chase the map. Change the measure, the walk or anything else the map is drawn from, and the panel says so: “The map changed — Standouts are out of date. Refresh to update them.” Until you do, the old outlines stay on the map, drawn dashed and pale, so you can still see what you were looking at a moment ago.

Reading the rows

Each row is one Standout: its rank, what put it there, how many hexes it holds and how big it is. On the London Missing map above, the rows read #1 · 51 hexes · about 2.8 km across. Rest the pointer on a row and the map shows that Standout's hexes; click it and the map moves to it.

Why does a Standout capped at “up to 2.4 km across” come out at about 2.8 km? The cap decides which hexes may join, measured to their centers. The row measures the outline around the outside of those hexes, which reaches about half a hex further on each side.

When Scout Bee draws Standouts as part of an answer, each row also carries the name of its neighborhood. Found from the panel, as in these London screenshots, the rows are numbered only.

What makes #1, map by map

This is the part that matters. “Best” is a different thing on every map, so each map type ranks its Standouts by its own rule, and the panel's subtitle says which.

• Amount - “Where there is most”. For a plain count, #1 holds the most in total. For a rate, an average or anything read within a 10-minute walk, #1 has the highest value over one fixed size.
• Fair share - “The biggest differences from the fair share”. Counted per 1 000 residents in the hex, #1 has the most places above (or below) what its residents would predict, and the row adds the multiple, in the form “212 more than expected · 3.1× its fair share”. A hex joins an end at 1.1× or more, or 1 ÷ 1.1 or less - where the legend leaves gray.
• Missing - “The biggest differences from what is expected”. Counted in the hex, #1 has the largest total gap. A hex joins an end when it has at least half a place more, or fewer, than expected.
• Clusters - “The most genuinely busy and quiet hexes”. #1 holds the most hexes with that verdict. The test's own statistic is never used to rank, because the map never prints it.
• Variety - “Where the most-mixed hexes crowd together”. #1 holds the most hexes from the map's most-mixed third; a tie goes to the higher average mix.
• Cross two - “The most hexes in each picked combination”. You choose the squares of the 3×3 legend (“Pick combinations - first measure across, second up”), and each one is ranked on its own by how many of its hexes a Standout holds.

Fair share and Missing read within a 10-minute walk, as in the London example, also count hexes rather than adding up gaps. Neighboring hexes share most of their walk, so adding their gaps together would count the same grocery stores many times over. That is why the London rows say “51 hexes” and not a number of stores: each Standout holds the most hexes at its end of the legend.

The math, honestly

The rule underneath all of this is simple: only add up a number that adds up. Ten cafés plus ten cafés is twenty cafés, so a count can be summed over a Standout. A rate cannot. Two hexes at 12 cafés per 1 000 residents are not a place with 24 per 1 000. The numbers below are illustrative.

So rates, shares, averages and walks are ranked over one fixed size, with a minimum number of residents (or places) underneath, so a handful of people and one café cannot win. The panel says so in a line of its own: “Every Standout here is the same size: a rate or an average could otherwise win by shrinking onto one hex.”

Here is that rule on the Amount map: cafés within a 10-minute walk, where a walk counts the cafés you can reach on foot within 10 minutes along streets and paths, nearer ones counting more (full weight under 3.5 min, 70% to 7 min, 40% to 10 min). The walk post explains that setting.

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Open London's Missing map with its Standouts

The whole idea, in six lines

• Standouts are ranked groups of nearby hexes, outlined on any map type and numbered #1, #2, #3.
• Each map ranks by what it measures; maps with two ends rank each end on its own.
• Counts are added up; rates, averages and walks are pooled over one fixed size with a minimum base, so size alone never wins.
• Size is said across: Max size caps which hexes may join, and each row measures the outline around them.
• Change the map and Standouts say they are out of date; Refresh Standouts brings them back in line.
• Rest on a row to see its hexes on the map; click it to go there.

Want to know what the Missing map itself is counting? That is the Missing post.