diff --git a/src/main/scala/au/csiro/variantspark/api/ImportanceAnalysis.scala b/src/main/scala/au/csiro/variantspark/api/ImportanceAnalysis.scala
index 686bf0a2..73272963 100644
--- a/src/main/scala/au/csiro/variantspark/api/ImportanceAnalysis.scala
+++ b/src/main/scala/au/csiro/variantspark/api/ImportanceAnalysis.scala
@@ -6,9 +6,10 @@ import au.csiro.pbdava.ssparkle.spark.SparkUtils
 import au.csiro.variantspark.algo.{RandomForest, RandomForestModel, RandomForestParams}
 import au.csiro.variantspark.data.BoundedOrdinalVariable
 import au.csiro.variantspark.input.{FeatureSource, LabelSource}
-import it.unimi.dsi.fastutil.longs.Long2DoubleOpenHashMap
+import it.unimi.dsi.fastutil.longs.{Long2DoubleOpenHashMap, Long2LongOpenHashMap}
+import org.apache.spark.SparkContext
 import org.apache.spark.sql.{DataFrame, Row, SQLContext}
-import org.apache.spark.sql.types.{DoubleType, StringType, StructField, StructType}
+import org.apache.spark.sql.types.{DoubleType, StringType, LongType, StructField, StructType}
 
 import scala.collection.JavaConverters._
 
@@ -16,35 +17,22 @@ import scala.collection.JavaConverters._
   * A class to represent an instance of the Importance Analysis
   *
   * @constructor Create a new `Importance Analysis` by specifying the parameters listed below
-  *
   * @param sqlContext    The SQL context.
   * @param featureSource The feature source.
-  * @param labelSource  The label source.
-  * @param rfParams The Random Forest parameters.
-  * @param nTrees The number of Decision Trees.
-  * @param rfBatchSize The batch size of the Random Forest
-  * @param varOrdinalLevels The level of ordinal
-  *
+  * @param rfModel The trained random forest model
   * @example class ImportanceAnalysis(featureSource, labelSource, nTrees = 1000)
   */
 class ImportanceAnalysis(val sqlContext: SQLContext, val featureSource: FeatureSource,
-    val labelSource: LabelSource, val rfParams: RandomForestParams, val nTrees: Int,
-    val rfBatchSize: Int, varOrdinalLevels: Int) {
-
+    val rfModel: RandomForestModel) {
   private def sc = featureSource.features.sparkContext
-  private lazy val inputData = featureSource.features.zipWithIndex().cache()
 
   val variableImportanceSchema: StructType =
     StructType(Seq(StructField("variable", StringType, true),
         StructField("importance", DoubleType, true)))
 
-  lazy val rfModel: RandomForestModel = {
-    val labels = labelSource.getLabels(featureSource.sampleNames)
-    val rf = new RandomForest(rfParams)
-    rf.batchTrain(inputData, labels, nTrees, rfBatchSize)
-  }
-
-  val oobError: Double = rfModel.oobError
+  val variableImportanceWithSplitCountSchema: StructType =
+    StructType(Seq(StructField("variant_id", StringType, true),
+        StructField("importance", DoubleType, true), StructField("splitCount", LongType, true)))
 
   private lazy val br_normalizedVariableImportance = {
     val indexImportance = rfModel.normalizedVariableImportance()
@@ -53,18 +41,44 @@ class ImportanceAnalysis(val sqlContext: SQLContext, val featureSource: FeatureS
             indexImportance.asInstanceOf[Map[java.lang.Long, java.lang.Double]].asJava))
   }
 
-  def variableImportance: DataFrame = {
-    val local_br_normalizedVariableImportance = br_normalizedVariableImportance
+  private lazy val br_variableImportance = {
+    val indexImportance = rfModel.variableImportance
+    sc.broadcast(
+        new Long2DoubleOpenHashMap(
+            indexImportance.asInstanceOf[Map[java.lang.Long, java.lang.Double]].asJava))
+  }
+
+  private lazy val br_splitCounts = {
+    val splitCounts = rfModel.variableSplitCount
+    sc.broadcast(
+        new Long2LongOpenHashMap(
+            splitCounts.asInstanceOf[Map[java.lang.Long, java.lang.Long]].asJava))
+  }
+
+  private lazy val inputData = featureSource.features.zipWithIndex().cache()
+
+  def variableImportance(normalized: Boolean = false): DataFrame = {
+    val local_br_variableImportance = if (!normalized) {
+      br_variableImportance
+    } else {
+      br_normalizedVariableImportance
+    }
+    val local_br_splitCounts = br_splitCounts
+
     val importanceRDD = inputData.map({
-      case (f, i) => Row(f.label, local_br_normalizedVariableImportance.value.get(i))
+      case (f, i) =>
+        Row(f.label, local_br_variableImportance.value.get(i), local_br_splitCounts.value.get(i))
     })
-    sqlContext.createDataFrame(importanceRDD, variableImportanceSchema)
+    sqlContext.createDataFrame(importanceRDD, variableImportanceWithSplitCountSchema)
   }
 
-  def importantVariables(nTopLimit: Int = 100): Seq[(String, Double)] = {
-    // build index for names
-    val topImportantVariables =
+  def importantVariables(nTopLimit: Int = 100,
+      normalized: Boolean = false): Seq[(String, Double)] = {
+    val topImportantVariables = if (!normalized) {
+      rfModel.variableImportance.toSeq.sortBy(-_._2).take(nTopLimit)
+    } else {
       rfModel.normalizedVariableImportance().toSeq.sortBy(-_._2).take(nTopLimit)
+    }
     val topImportantVariableIndexes = topImportantVariables.map(_._1).toSet
 
     val index =
@@ -79,35 +93,19 @@ class ImportanceAnalysis(val sqlContext: SQLContext, val featureSource: FeatureS
     topImportantVariables.map({ case (i, importance) => (index(i), importance) })
   }
 
-  def importantVariablesJavaMap(nTopLimit: Int = 100): util.Map[String, Double] = {
-    val impVarMap = collection.mutable.Map(importantVariables(nTopLimit).toMap.toSeq: _*)
+  def importantVariablesJavaMap(nTopLimit: Int = 100,
+      normalized: Boolean = false): util.Map[String, Double] = {
+    val impVarMap =
+      collection.mutable.Map(importantVariables(nTopLimit, normalized).toMap.toSeq: _*)
     impVarMap.map { case (k, v) => k -> double2Double(v) }
     impVarMap.asJava
   }
 }
 
 object ImportanceAnalysis {
-
-  val defaultRFParams: RandomForestParams = RandomForestParams()
-
-  def apply(featureSource: FeatureSource, labelSource: LabelSource, nTrees: Int = 1000,
-      mtryFraction: Option[Double] = None, oob: Boolean = true, seed: Option[Long] = None,
-      batchSize: Int = 100, varOrdinalLevels: Int = 3)(
+  def apply(featureSource: FeatureSource, rfModel: RandomForestModel)(
       implicit vsContext: SqlContextHolder): ImportanceAnalysis = {
 
-    new ImportanceAnalysis(vsContext.sqlContext, featureSource, labelSource,
-      rfParams = RandomForestParams(
-          nTryFraction = mtryFraction.getOrElse(defaultRFParams.nTryFraction),
-          seed = seed.getOrElse(defaultRFParams.seed), oob = oob),
-      nTrees = nTrees, rfBatchSize = batchSize, varOrdinalLevels = varOrdinalLevels)
+    new ImportanceAnalysis(vsContext.sqlContext, featureSource, rfModel)
   }
-
-  def fromParams(featureSource: FeatureSource, labelSource: LabelSource,
-      rfParams: RandomForestParams, nTrees: Int = 1000, batchSize: Int = 100,
-      varOrdinalLevels: Int = 3)(implicit vsContext: SqlContextHolder): ImportanceAnalysis = {
-
-    new ImportanceAnalysis(vsContext.sqlContext, featureSource, labelSource, rfParams = rfParams,
-      nTrees = nTrees, rfBatchSize = batchSize, varOrdinalLevels = varOrdinalLevels)
-  }
-
 }