The Potts model was one of the most popular physics models of the twentieth century in an interdisciplinary context. It has been applied to a large variety of problems. Many generalizations exists and a whole range of models were inspired by this statistical physics tool. Here we present how a generic Potts model can be used to study complex data. As a demonstration, we engage our model in the analysis of night light patterns of human settlements observed on space photographs.
Categories: physics.soc-ph physics.data-an stat.AP