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Hierarchical Clustering Algorithm


The algorithm used for hierarchical clustering in Spotfire is a hierarchical agglomerative method. The cluster analysis begins with each row in a separate cluster by calculating the distance between all possible combinations of two rows using a selected distance measure. The two most similar clusters are grouped together and form a new cluster. In subsequent steps, the distance between the new cluster and all remaining clusters is recalculated using a selected clustering method. The number of clusters is thereby reduced by one in each iteration step. Eventually, all rows are grouped into one large cluster. The order of the rows or columns in a dendrogram are defined by the selected ordering weight.

See also:

Overview of Hierarchical Clustering Theory