How to use Unclocked 3D Heatmap

Add the visual to your report

1. In Power BI Desktop, open a report and select Get more visuals in the Visualizations pane.
2. Search for Unclocked 3D Heatmap and select Add.
3. Select the new icon in the Visualizations pane to place the visual on the page.
4. Make the visual large enough for the warehouse and its controls. A wide visual gives the menu, legend, and search box room.

Prefer to start from a finished example? Open the sample report in Power BI Desktop, or load the sample CSV and follow along.

Prepare your warehouse data

Use one row per physical bin or location. Each row identifies the location, gives its position, and provides the value to color it by.

How coordinates work

• X runs across the warehouse and Y along the floor. Together they mark the starting corner of the bin's footprint.
• Z is the bin's base height. Leave it out for a single-level layout; missing Z means floor level.
• Width extends from X, length from Y, and height upward from Z.
• Use one unit for everything, such as inches, feet, or centimeters. The visual centers the layout itself, so coordinates don't need to start at zero.

Tips for clean data

• Give every location a stable, unique ID. If an ID appears twice, the visual keeps the first row and lists the duplicates in a warning.
• Keep coordinates and sizes in numeric columns, and stacked bins on distinct Z values.
• Use a measure for Heat Value so it responds to report filters.
• Keep the layout in its own location table, related one-to-many to your inventory or activity data, so locations stay in place when they have no activity.
• To show empty locations, right-click Location ID in the Build pane and turn on Show items with no data. Power BI otherwise leaves out rows where every measure is blank.

Have the layout only in an AutoCAD drawing? Our warehouse mapping service can prepare the coordinate CSV.

Add your fields

Select the visual and drag fields into these wells in the Build pane. Location ID, X, Y, and Heat Value are enough to draw the warehouse.

Explore the warehouse

Move around in 3D

• Drag with the left mouse button to orbit, use the mouse wheel to zoom, and drag with the middle button to pan.
• Hover over a bin to see its location, categories, coordinates, size, and heat value.
• Select a bin to see its details in the visual. Right-click it for the Power BI context menu.

Use the menu

Open Menu in the upper-right corner of the visual.

• Mode: switch between 3D and the flat 2D plan.
• Camera: Default returns to the default view, Top looks straight down, and Iso gives an angled view. The save button makes the current camera the report's default, and Fit current layout frames the locations currently shown.
• Saved Views: click an empty P1, P2, or P3 to save the current camera, click a saved one to return to it, and Shift-click to replace it. Save the report to keep these views.
• Category filters: each category field gets a dropdown. Click values to add or remove them, and Clear to show all. Locations must match every active filter. Non-matching chooses whether other locations are dimmed, keeping their place in the layout, or hidden.

Switch to the 2D plan

In 2D, dragging pans instead of orbiting and the wheel zooms. The pad in the bottom-right corner pans with its arrows and rotates the plan in 90° steps; its center button resets the rotation and fits the floor. Fit to floor in the menu also frames the whole warehouse. Where levels share a footprint, the highest one shows on top, so filter to one level to analyze it on its own. Returning to 3D restores your previous 3D camera.

Search for a location

Type part of a Location ID in Search location, then choose a suggestion or press Enter. The visual focuses on that location and selects it. IDs that start with your text are listed first. Press Escape to clear the search.

Connect to the rest of the report

Choose what a click does in Format visual → Interaction → Bin click behavior:

• Visual only highlights the bin and shows its details without changing other visuals.
• Power BI selection uses standard Power BI selection, so other visuals respond through their interactions.
• Power BI filter filters the report to the selected location.

Set the heat scale

The heat scale in Format visual → Heat scale turns Heat Value into color. Open Scale details in the legend to see the values in use.

• Gradient blends smoothly between the low, medium, high, and critical colors. Use it when small differences matter.
• Bands changes color at each threshold. Use it when thresholds are business rules, such as warning and critical levels.
• Normalized gradient spaces the four colors evenly across the displayed range and ignores thresholds.

Range and thresholds

• Auto range from visible data fits the scale to the locations shown. Turn it off and set Manual minimum and Manual maximum to compare pages, sites, or periods on the same scale.
• Cap outliers keeps a few extreme values from washing out the rest of the warehouse.
• Treat zero as empty uses the empty color for blank, zero, and negative values.
• Threshold source: Manual uses the values set in the Format pane. Measures uses the DAX measures in the threshold field wells, so targets can follow slicers. Each measure must return the same number for every location; if one doesn't, the visual shows an error and neutral colors.

Find exceptions

Turn on Format visual → Exceptions → Show exception finder to list the locations that need attention.

• Heat Value rules find locations At or above or At or below a cutoff, or that are Zero or Blank. The cutoff is separate from the color thresholds.
• DAX exception score ranks locations by a measure in the Exception score well. Only positive scores count, and higher scores rank first.
• Results to show sets how many locations are listed. Results follow category filters and report highlighting.

Select a result to see its details, then choose Focus in 3D to frame it. Finding blank locations requires Show items with no data on Location ID, as described in step 2.

Format and performance

• Scene: background and floor colors, the floor plane, a fixed floor size, bin outlines and opacity, and the UI theme (Neutral light, Neutral dark, or Classic purple). Show 3D Heatmap status and Show license notice hide the corner boxes.
• Floor image: paste a PNG, JPEG, or WebP image as a data URL in Scene, then set the floor origin, width, and length to the same units and bounds as your coordinates so it lines up. Links to images on other sites aren't supported.
• Legend: show or hide it, change its title, and choose how the selected value is marked.
• Bins: default sizes, Vertical scale to stretch or compress heights, and Max displayed bins.
• Camera: automatic framing, default distance, and whether to open on the saved default view.

Large warehouses

Choose a Performance preset: Balanced for most reports, Quality for smaller layouts, Performance when navigation speed matters most, or Custom for individual settings. If movement slows, turn off bin outlines and hover tooltips, lower Max displayed bins while designing, or filter the report to one area. Test the finished report in both Power BI Desktop and the Power BI service.

Plan limits

The free plan renders up to 2,500 bins with every feature. Professional removes that limit, up to the Max displayed bins you set (at most 100,000). See plans and pricing and license assignment.

Need more help?

For the bigger picture, from getting coordinates to choosing measures, read how to build a warehouse heat map in Power BI. See the frequently asked questions and troubleshooting, or email support@unclocked.app with your Power BI version, approximate number of locations, and a screenshot.