Histogram Contour Plot using Python

A histogram contour plot is a two-dimensional representation of a histogram that looks like a contour plot. It is used to analyze anomalies and manage overplotting in a large dataset. If you don’t know how to visualize a histogram contour plot, this article is for you. In this article, I will take you through a tutorial on visualizing a histogram contour plot using Python.

Histogram Contour Plot using Python

A histogram contour plot is also known as a density contour plot. It looks like a standard contour plot, but it represents data by computing the grouping set of data points into bins and applying an aggregation function. You can use a histogram contour plot instead of a scatter plot when the scatter plot results in overlapping data points.

To visualize a histogram contour graph using Python, I will first import the necessary Python libraries and a dataset:

import pandas as pd
import plotly.graph_objects as go

data = pd.read_csv("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/amankharwal/Website-data/master/tips.csv")
print(data.head())
   total_bill   tip     sex smoker  day    time  size
0       16.99  1.01  Female     No  Sun  Dinner     2
1       10.34  1.66    Male     No  Sun  Dinner     3
2       21.01  3.50    Male     No  Sun  Dinner     3
3       23.68  3.31    Male     No  Sun  Dinner     2
4       24.59  3.61  Female     No  Sun  Dinner     4

Now here’s how to visualize a histogram contour plot using Python:

figure = go.Figure(go.Histogram2dcontour(x = data["total_bill"], 
                                         y = data["tip"], 
                                         colorscale = "Blues"))
figure.show()
Histogram Contour Plot

So this is how you can easily visualize a histogram contour graph or a density contour graph by using the plotly library in Python.

Summary

A histogram contour plot is a two-dimensional representation of a histogram that looks like a contour plot. It is also known as a density contour plot. You can use a histogram contour plot instead of a scatter plot when the scatter plot results in overlapping data points. I hope you liked this article on how to visualize a histogram contour plot. Feel free to ask valuable questions in the comments section below.

Aman Kharwal
Aman Kharwal

I'm a writer and data scientist on a mission to educate others about the incredible power of data📈.

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