How to Create a Parallel-Coordinates Plot

Parallel coordinates are a way to plot multivariate data. They are primarily used to visualize the relationships between many numeric variables. The chart gives each variable its own axis and positions it in parallel to the other axes, with the data points plotted as a series of lines along each axis.

Requirements

Numerical data must be used for the plots. It is optional to select a nominal or ordinal variable to define the colors of the plot.

The variable order of the parallel coordinates chart will determine how the axes are arranged.

Method

1. Go to Visualization > Exotic > Parallel Coordinates

2. In the object inspector go to the Data Source tab.

3. Under Data Source - insert numeric variables you'd like to use. Note - the order in which these are entered will be the order from left to right of the plot

4. OPTIONAL: Choose color variable. This variable must match the names in the numeric variables and be nominal or ordinal

5. OPTIONAL: Check Variable Names - to instead insert variable names into the plot

6. OPTIONAL: Tidy Labels - extract common prefixes to simplify names (default)

7. OPTIONAL: Reverse Axes - show smallest values at top of chart (default)

8. OPTIONAL: Enable interactions - can select lines to filter the plot

       Example - Heavy Pepsi drinkers at home:

9. OPTIONAL: Render lines progressively - shows an animation of the lines in the plot

Next

How to Create a Scatterplot Matrix

How to Add a Line to a Column Chart (Second Y-Axis)