Hexbin Plume: 11 how-to guides

These recipes start from a Hexbin Plume already in place. If it is not, begin with getting started: the examples reuse its homes (Home in Details, Average area on X, Average price on Y). Features marked ★ are premium: they work without a license, with a watermark.

How do I color the bins by an average instead of the number of points?

You want to know where rents are highest, not only where homes are numerous.

1. Drag Average rent into Value (per bin).
2. Format › Bins › Bin value › Calculation stays on Automatic: with the Value field, it is the average. Pick Sum, Median, Minimum or Maximum if needed.
3. For a margin or a gap that can be negative: Format › Color scale › Diverging scale (around a center) ★ on, Center = Zero (premium feature: watermark without a key; steps 1 and 2 are free).

Result: the legend becomes "Average of Average rent"; the tooltip of each bin still gives the number of homes.

How do I show the most frequent city in each bin?

1. Drag City into Legend (category).
2. Format › Data colors › Coloring = Dominant category (Legend field).
3. Change the color of a city in the same card (one color per city).
4. Click a city in the legend: the page filters on that city.

Result: a map of the "neighborhoods" of your cloud. The tooltip gives the dominant city and its share ("Bristol (62%)"). Beyond 12 categories, the least frequent ones are grouped into Others, in gray.

How do I watch the density change from year to year? ★

1. Drag Year into Play axis ★ (premium feature: watermark until you enter a key).
2. Click ▶ in the play bar below the chart: the colors glide from one year to the next, the year is shown in large type.
3. Format › Playback ★ › Frame shown on opening = The first one, Loop on for a continuous animation.

Result: the same bins from one year to the next, with a shared color scale (Format › Color scale › Scale with a play axis = Shared by all frames): the same color means the same number of sales every year.

How do I build up the density over time? ★

You want to see sales pile up since 2019 rather than year by year.

1. Keep Year in Play axis ★.
2. Format › Playback ★ › More settings › Accumulate frames on.

Result: each frame shows every sale up to it; the density fills up as it plays.

How do I see isolated values instead of hiding them? ★

Single-home bins clutter the view, but you do not want to lose the rare cases.

1. Format › Bins › Bin value › Minimum points per bin = 3.
2. Bins under the minimum = Drawn as points (isolated values) ★ (premium feature: watermark without a key; Hidden stays free).

Result: only areas with at least 3 homes form bins; the other homes stay visible as small points.

How do I zoom in down to the homes themselves?

1. Hold Shift and drag a rectangle over the area to explore.
2. The bins are recomputed for the view (same size on screen, narrower value ranges): this is the semantic zoom.
3. Format › Points › Show points = When few remain (zoom), Maximum visible points = 1,500: the homes appear over the bins as soon as fewer than 1,500 remain in the view.
4. Hover a point: its tooltip; click it: the page filters on that home.
5. Double-click, or click ⟲, to go back to the full view.

How do I write the number of homes in the bins?

1. Format › Data labels › Show on, Content = Number of points.
2. Labeled bins = Largest values (N), N = 10.
3. If the numbers do not fit: Format › Bins › Bin size = Radius (px), 16 or more.

Result: the 10 densest bins carry their count, in white or black depending on the bin color.

How do I compare two cities? ★

You want to know where Bristol is over-represented compared with the other cities.

1. City in Legend (category).
2. Format › Data colors › Coloring = Difference between two categories.
3. Category A = Bristol; Category B empty (all the others) or York.

Result: red where Bristol's share of homes exceeds that of the others, blue the other way round, white at balance. The tooltip gives the share of each group and the gap in points. Comparing shares (not counts) lets you compare two groups of different sizes.

How do I show where sales grew? ★

1. Year in Play axis ★.
2. Format › Data colors › Coloring = Change between frames (play axis), Compare with = The previous frame or The first frame.

Result: red where sales increased, blue where they decreased, including bins that emptied. The tooltip gives the "Before" count and the change. With a Value field and a calculation such as the average, it is the average that changes.

How do I show both the average rent and the number of homes? ★

1. Average rent in Value (per bin) (the color shows the average).
2. Format › Bins › Proportional size › Bin size by = The number of points.
3. Smallest bin size = 30% to keep rare bins visible.

Result: a bivariate hexbin; a small dark bin = high rent on few homes.

How do I add contour lines, marginal histograms and a trend line? ★

1. Format › Contour lines › Show on (5 lines by default; Smoothing 0 = automatic).
2. Format › Marginal histograms › Show on: the distribution of areas above, that of prices on the right, with the same classes as the bins.
3. Analytics pane › Trend › Show on, Show the equation if needed; One trend per category with the Legend.

For one chart per home type, drag Type into Small multiples ★: same axes, same bins and same colors in each chart.

How do I draw the average price per m² (ratio line)?

With the area on X and the price on Y, a line from the origin gives the price per m²: homes above it are more expensive than average, those below are cheaper.

1. Analytics pane, Symmetry and ratio card, Ratio line group: turn on Show.
2. Slope = Total Y ÷ total X: the slope is the total price divided by the total area of the visible homes, that is, the average price per m².
3. For a target price, choose Slope = Fixed value and type it in Fixed slope (for example 4500).

Result: a line crosses the cloud; it follows filters (pick a city and it takes that city's price per m²). This card is free.

How do I keep the same axes when filtering a city?

A City slicer removes the homes of the other cities: the axes refit, and the bins change size. Pin the axis bounds with measures that ignore this filter.

1. Create the measures:

X axis max =
CALCULATE ( MAX ( Homes[Area] ), REMOVEFILTERS ( Homes[City] ) )  -- the largest area, all cities

Y axis max =
CALCULATE ( MAX ( Homes[Price] ), REMOVEFILTERS ( Homes[City] ) )

2. Drag them into Dynamic format, then rename them for this visual xAxis.max and yAxis.max (do the same with xAxis.min and yAxis.min if needed).
3. Pick a city: the axes and the bin grid no longer move; only the colors change.

Don't use ALLSELECTED (): it follows slicers, so the scale would still move. REMOVEFILTERS ( Homes ) (or ALL ( Homes )) ignores every filter. To keep the colors too, drive colorScale.max the same way. A highlight sent by another visual does not change the scale (Interactions › Scale during cross-highlighting).

Learn more

• Getting started with Hexbin Plume: the data to prepare and a first visual step by step.
• Hexbin Plume fields and settings: every field well and every setting.
• Getting started with Plume visuals: installation, license, styles and shared settings.
• The visual's page: Hexbin Plume. A question: support.