551 – Contributed Oral Poster Presentations: Section on Statistical Graphics
Introduction and Application of a New Type of Jittered Scatter Plot - The Line-up Jittered Scatter Plot or Bee Swarm Plot
Charlie C. Liu
Kythera Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.
Todd M. Gross
Kythera Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.
Jittered scatter plots are often used when there are overlapping data values in one of the axes, and use random or a pre-set jittering noise to separate the overlapping data. This paper introduces a new type of jittered scatter plot, known as line-up jittered where the data points are jittered systematically within a group instead of randomly. When the data points with differences within a certain limit on one of the axes are jittered and positioned by group, the data points are "lined-up", hence the name. A line-up jittered scatter plot is also known as a bee swarm plot because it resembles bees swarming around a hive. A line-up jittered scatter plot provides a more organized and better data visualization than its randomly jittered counterpart. The algorithms and a SAS macro performing the line-up jittering are provided. The applications of the new scatter plot are illustrated in examples, including in a customized box-plot with outliers presented in line-up scatters.