The order book as a heatmap on its own dark field: thin size in soft blue, the biggest walls in yellow, orange and red, with trade balls and the book.
In plain English
What it shows
- The order book as a heatmap: size resting at every price over time. Soft blue is thin, and the biggest resting orders turn yellow, orange and red.
- Trade balls and the order book ladder are drawn on top.
How traders use it
- See where large orders waited, how long they stayed and where they disappeared.
- Adjust Smooth and Contrast to make bands easier to read.
What it does not tell you
- Resting orders can be added or pulled at any moment. The map shows what was there.
- It has no buy or sell buttons and says nothing about direction.
Overview
Depth Heatmap (L2) paints the size resting at every price over time. Thin size is a soft blue texture, more size turns light blue and white, and the biggest resting orders turn yellow, orange and red. Most of the book stays blue, so the few big walls stand out.
A level is drawn as one steady bar from when it appears until its size really changes or it is removed. On top you see the price line, balls for traded volume, the current book at the right edge and buy and sell volume bars along the bottom.
How it works
It reads the full order book (Data feed L2 for futures, the exchange's public book for crypto) plus recorded book history. Each price level is averaged over the last Smooth seconds, using only past data, and a level keeps its drawn size until it moves by more than about a fifth, flips side or is gone.
Colours follow the rank of each size among the sizes in view. Trade balls are sized by the volume traded in a short time and split green and red by the share of aggressive buying and selling. The right-hand columns show the size per price now and the running total from the best price outward.
How to use it
- Use it to see where large resting orders sit around price and how long they stay.
- Some traders watch whether price trades into a red wall or turns before it.
- Compare a wall that ends while price is far away with one that ends as price trades through it.
- Raise Lower cutoff to hide the thinnest levels when the picture is busy.
These are ways some traders read it, for learning. They are not trade signals.
Settings
| Setting | Default |
|---|---|
| SmoothAverages each price level over the last N seconds (past only), so a choppy book reads as calm bands. Sizes in the heatmap are averages.Options: Off, 15 s, 30 s, 60 s, 2 min | 30 s |
| ContrastAuto: colours follow the sizes in view, so most of the book is blue and only the biggest walls turn yellow, orange and red.Options: Auto, Manual | Auto |
| Manual contrastHigher = more of the book lights up. Lower = only the biggest walls stand out. | 1 |
| Lower cutoff (hide below %)Hide the thinnest levels: the smallest N % of the sizes in view. 0 shows everything. | 0 |
| Volume bubblesEach ball is the volume traded in a short time. Size = volume. Green part = aggressive buying, red part = aggressive selling. | On |
| Bubble size % | 100 |
| Book bars (right side)The size resting at each price now: red above the price (asks), green below (bids). | On |
| Cumulative columnThe running total of resting size from the best price outward. | On |
| Volume barsTraded volume per bar along the bottom, green = buying, red = selling. | On |
| Graphics card (smoother) | On |
Notes and limits
- Pro: needs the full order book (Data feed L2).
- Needs the full order book (Data feed L2). Works on NQ, ES, YM, RTY, CL and GC futures and on crypto order books.
- It describes resting orders and prints. It does not predict anything and has no order buttons.
- Smooth, Contrast and Lower cutoff change only how the map looks, not the data. In replay it draws nothing after the replay time.
Education only. Not financial advice. Indicators mark what happened on the chart; they do not predict what price will do. Trading futures, forex, crypto and other markets carries a high level of risk and may not be suitable for everyone.