Circos > Documentation > Tutorials > Recipes > Stacked Histograms

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9 — Recipes

8. Stacked Histograms

stacking data sets

Stacked histograms are an extenstion of the histogram track. To plot stacked histograms, the only adjustment you require is to provide a series of values for each histogram bin in your data file.

For example, here is a part of a data file for a stacked histogram in which 5 data sets are stacked.

...
hs7 65000000 69999999 0.388090,0.070074,0.547485,0.842239,0.525658
hs7 70000000 74999999 0.886542,0.321023,0.145677,0.897684,0.264217
hs7 75000000 79999999 0.854199,0.567889,0.574767,0.656331,0.418385
hs7 80000000 84999999 0.286509,0.201049,0.552485,0.876529,0.999801
hs7 85000000 89999999 0.154836,0.515471,0.389453,0.440168,0.475127
...

The first value will appear at the bottom of the bin's stack, then the second, then third, and so on.

formatting stacked data sets

Individual format parameters (color, thickness fill_color, pattern) for each data sets can be specified by providing a list of comma-separated values.

For example, to make each data set filled with a different color, provide five different values for fill_color.

fill_color = red,orange,yellow,green,blue

If you provide parameter values than data sets, they will be cycled.

Assigning individual values for color and thickness can produce useful displays, particularly when color=white and thickness is varied.

color      = white
fill_color = red,orange,yellow,green,blue
fill_under = yes
thickness  = 1,2,3,4,5

colors and patterns

You can independently cycle bins' color and pattern.

fill_color = red,grey,black
pattern    = checker,solid

will create the following bins

  color  pattern
  red    checker
  grey   solid
  black  checker
  red    solid
  grey   checker
  black  solid
  ...    ...

adjusting stack order

By default, the bins are stacked in order of appearance of their values in the data file. Thus, given the colors

fill_color = red,orange,yellow,green,blue

the data line

hs1 0 4999999 0.237788,0.291066,0.845814,0.152208,0.585537

the bins will stack in the following order

  • 0.237788 (red)
  • 0.291066 (orange)
  • 0.845814 (yellow)
  • 0.152208 (green)
  • 0.585537 (blue)

However, when

sort_bin_values = yes

is used, the bins will be stacked by decreasing value

  • 0.845814 (yellow)
  • 0.585537 (blue)
  • 0.291066 (orange)
  • 0.237788 (red)
  • 0.152208 (green)