cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
JMP is taking Discovery online, April 16 and 18. Register today and join us for interactive sessions featuring popular presentation topics, networking, and discussions with the experts.
Choose Language Hide Translation Bar

Changing the color of bubbles in bubble plots

I've struggled recently with the colors of bubbles in bubble plots. I know that I can change it by using the Column Info in the data set and changing the Value Color there, but why can't I change the color directly in the Bubble Plot by using the 'Customize' menu?

When I use the Customize menu, the new color I select is not reflected in the bubble plot, but it does appear in the Script Window, and even when I relaunch the script the color does not change. Does the Fill Color in the Customize window refer to the color of the bubbles or to something else?

Thanks!
1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
djsandel
Level II

Re: Changing the color of bubbles in bubble plots

I was just shown by a colleague that changing the Bubble Plot Color Theme IS possible (JMP 13.2.1) - it's just inconsistent with how Graph Builder works.  In Graph Builder, you can double-click the legend and change the Color Theme from that dialog.  Doing to in Bubble Plot leads to an inconsistent dialog without access to the Color Theme.  However, access is provided through Bubble Plot's Red Triangle menu (provided an ID variable exists and displays as a legend).  This was a huge relief for me, as I needed a gradient color scheme instead of the default diverging one for my situation.

So, it appears the feature request has been granted!  A modified feature request would be to upgrade Bubble Plot's Legend menu to function more consistently with Graph Builder.

View solution in original post

6 REPLIES 6

Re: Changing the color of bubbles in bubble plots

In general a bubble plot is displaying an average value rather than a single data point. Therefore the Value Color property does not get applied. If you assign a column to the Color role, then a blue-to-red colour gradient will be applied. To my knowledge, you are not able to change the color scheme of this gradient.

The gradient itself appears to be calibrated against the actual data range for the column, but the bubble plot is displaying average values. Therefore you may have a situation where the plot never shows the full potential colour range e.g. the raw data may go from 20 to 100 and the colour scale will reflect this, but the average values will only span 30 to 70, so you dont see the colour differentiation that you are looking for.
XanGregg
Staff

Re: Changing the color of bubbles in bubble plots

Value Colors are applied if the Color and ID role have the same variable. Regarding the original question, it looks like Bubble Plot ignores Customize settings.
sfkeydel
Level III

Re: Changing the color of bubbles in bubble plots

I think this would be a good feature request. At my company, we use a data visualization application called Tableau that permits you not only to choose the endpoints and the order of the color gradation, but also allows you to choose the specific colors in the range (and it can be more than two!).

This can be very useful if you're trying to visually denote a value judgment; for example, you may want your color range to go from red to yellow to green, and you may need to set which end of the continuum should start with red.

Tableau doesn't come close to JMP in terms of statistical power (and doesn't really try to, as it's not the intent of the application), but it has some graphical capabilities that would be very welcome in JMP. In this particular instance, I think the potential value to JMP is quite clear.

Stefan
djsandel
Level II

Re: Changing the color of bubbles in bubble plots

I was just shown by a colleague that changing the Bubble Plot Color Theme IS possible (JMP 13.2.1) - it's just inconsistent with how Graph Builder works.  In Graph Builder, you can double-click the legend and change the Color Theme from that dialog.  Doing to in Bubble Plot leads to an inconsistent dialog without access to the Color Theme.  However, access is provided through Bubble Plot's Red Triangle menu (provided an ID variable exists and displays as a legend).  This was a huge relief for me, as I needed a gradient color scheme instead of the default diverging one for my situation.

So, it appears the feature request has been granted!  A modified feature request would be to upgrade Bubble Plot's Legend menu to function more consistently with Graph Builder.

txnelson
Super User

Re: Changing the color of bubbles in bubble plots

I suggest that you add your "modified feature" to the JMP Wish List at the top of the page!

Jim
theseventhhill
Level II

Re: Changing the color of bubbles in bubble plots

Hello

I am not sure what happened to the feature request or maybe I am little early or late to it but I am using JMP 13.2 and updated to 13.3, I do not see a easy way of changing the fill colors. Because there are other plots with grouping based coloring, I would love to have the bubble plot also be consistent.

Any thoughts from the experts on how to handle this? Is there a add-in or fix or some menu that I have not yet figured out which would help me take care of this?

Thanks,