Using density-distribution sunflower plots to explore bivariate relationships in dense data
William D. Dupont
Department of Biostatistics
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
[email protected]
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W. Dale Plummer, Jr.
Department of Biostatistics
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
[email protected]
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Abstract. Density-distribution sunflower plots are used to display high-density
bivariate data. They are useful for data where a conventional scatterplot is
difficult to read due to overstriking of the plot symbol. The x–y
plane is subdivided into a lattice of small, regular, hexagonal bins. These
bins are divided into low-, medium-, and high-density groups. In low-density
bins, the individual observations are plotted as in a conventional
scatterplot. Medium- and high-density bins contain light and dark
sunflowers, respectively. In a light sunflower, each petal represents one
observation. In a dark sunflower, each petal represents a specific number of
observations. The user can control the sizes and colors of the sunflowers.
By selecting appropriate colors and sizes for the light and dark sunflowers,
plots can be obtained that give both the overall sense of the data-density
distribution, as well as the number of data points in any given region.
View all articles by these authors:
William D. Dupont, W. Dale Plummer, Jr.
View all articles with these keywords:
scatterplot, sunflower plot, bivariate data, density plot, probability density function, graphical statistics
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