If more detail is required, different maps are necessary. Often, component planes are used in which a different map is calculated for each feature of the training vector. Each map visualizes how a certain feature is distributed over the map.

Returning to the example of sorting colors, it can be individually visualized how a certain color—red, green or blue—is present on the map. There may be regions where the amount of red is large while blue and green are hardly present. Therefore a single map must be plotted for each color.

Even though more data must be observed, these component planes allow a systematic analysis of the map and can be further applied to very high-dimensional feature spaces.