Resizing markers

About this task

Note: The marker size controls described here do not have any effect when the scatter plot is configured with tiled markers. Tiled markers have the same size by definition. Locate the Shape section in the visualization properties to change marker shapes.

Resizing using the Marker size slider

In the visualization properties, you can find the Marker size slider under the Appearance tab in the visualization properties panel, or under Size in the visualization properties dialog or popover.

With this slider, you change the total size of all markers, and it can also be combined with a Size by column, as described below.

Letting a column determine the size of markers (Size by)

If you select a column under the Size by control in the visualization properties (under Configuration in the visualization properties panel, or under Size in the dialog), or in the legend, you let the values in that column determine how large the markers in different categories should be.

In the example below, the scatter plot is showing one marker per row and each marker is sized by how large the value of sales was in each transaction.

If the markers in the visualization have been aggregated by setting the Marker by option to something other than (Row Number), you can also specify an aggregation, such as Sum or Avg for the Size by setting.

If desired, you can change the Scale configurations for the Size by setting in the visualization properties, to determine what scale to use for the markers.

From min to max - Assigns the maximum marker size to the highest value and the minimum marker size to the lowest value. For instance, if the minimum and maximum data values are -9 and 11 the marker sizes might look as follows:

This mode is useful when you want to visualize differences.

The Min and Max limits that should be mapped to the marker size are by default set to "Automatic". This means that the marker size will adapt during filtering. If the scale is set to "From min to max", the current minimum value will have the minimum marker size, and the current maximum value will have the maximum marker size. It is comparable to automatic zooming on the axes.

It is also possible to lock the max and/or min limit to a specific value. Data values that are lower than the minimum value or higher than the maximum value will get the same size as the minimum and maximum value, respectively. By specifying both a high and low value, the auto-scaling behavior is switched off.
From 0 to max absolute value - This mode is useful when you want to compare the magnitude of measures. By letting the value 0 map to marker size 0, and the maximum value to the maximum marker size, it is possible to compare the diameter of markers and say "a" is twice as big as "b". With this scale, the values 50 and 100 would be rendered like this:

Note: The size is scaled symmetrically around 0 with absolute numbers. That is, if your highest value is 10 and your lowest is -20, the size of the marker at 10 will be 50 percent of the maximum marker size.

By default, the absolute Max limit that should be mapped to the marker size is set to "Automatic". This means that the marker size will adapt during filtering. The value 0 will have the minimum marker size and the highest absolute value in the visualization will have the maximum marker size.

It is possible to lock the max to a specific value. Data values that have a larger absolute value than the specified value will get the same size as the maximum value.
When resizing markers in the marker layer of a map chart and working with a geographical coordinate reference system (not an image background) you can also use the setting Keep marker size absolute relative to geography (only in geographical CRS), to make sure that the markers look bigger when you zoom in (the same way as the geographical objects do).
If you clear the check box the markers will be of the same size on your screen, no matter how much you zoom in.

The relative marker size can always be adjusted using the Marker size slider mentioned above.

3d scatter plot: Resizing using the keyboard

In the 3d scatter plot (available in the installed client only), you can also use keyboard shortcuts to resize the markers:


Shortcuts	Description
Press and hold down the Ctrl key and the plus (+) key simultaneously until the markers have the desired size.	Increase size of markers.
Press and release the plus key repeatedly while pressing the Ctrl key.	Increase size of markers.
Press and hold the Ctrl key and the minus (-) key simultaneously.	Decrease size of markers.
Press and release the minus key repeatedly while pressing the Ctrl key.	Decrease size of markers.
Press and hold down the Ctrl key while rotating the mouse wheel.	Resize markers.