Two dimensional smoothing via an optimised Whittaker smoother

*Correspondence: [email protected] 1Department of Mathematical Sciences, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, CO4 3SQ Colchester, UK Full list of author information is available at the end of the article Abstract Background: In many applications where moderate to large datasets are used, plotting relationships between pairs of variables can be problematic. A large number of observations will produce a scatter-plot which is difficult to investigate due to a high concentration of points on a simple graph. In this article we review the Whittaker smoother for enhancing scatter-plots and smoothing data in two dimensions. To optimise the behaviour of the smoother an algorithm is introduced, which is easy to programme and computationally efficient.