marks

The 2D plotting style with marks places a mark composed of lines and polygons at each data point. This style is only relevant for 2D plotting. It is designed for drawing a scatter plot with custom marks (symbols). It can also be used to compose annotation or non-textual labeling for other plot styles. For a general description of how marks are defined see marks, in particular the examples given there.

Syntax:

     plot <data> with marks marktype {<tag>|variable}
                                     {units {ps|xy|xx|yy|gxy|gxx|gyy}}
                                     {noclip}

The plot with marks command requires 2 to 5 columns of basic data. Each mark is positioned in accordance with its center, xscale, yscale, and rotation angle in degrees. The direction and origin of the rotation angle obeys the setting by set theta. This sequence of input data is similar to the ellipses plot style (see with ellipses). Additional input columns can be used to provide variable line colors, fill colors, or marktype (see rgbcolor variable).

Using specifier:

     2 column: x y
     3 column: x y scale
     4 column: x y xscale yscale
     5 column: x y xscale yscale angle

The "marktype" keyword (abbreviated form "mt") is used to specify the tag number of a mark previously defined by a set mark command. If the keyword "variable" is given instead of a numerical tag, the marktype at each point is taken from an additional column of input data.

The "units" options specifies what coordinate system is used to interpret [x,y] values stored in the mark definition by set mark.

     ps  : both of x and y in units close to pointsize (default)
     xy  : x in units of the x axis and y in units of the y axis
     xx  : both of x and y in units of the x axis
     yy  : both of x and y in units of the y axis
     gxy : x and y in % of the horizontal and vertical graph range
     gxx : both of x and y in % of the horizontal graph range
     gyy : both of x and y in % of the vertical graph range

The "noclip" option permits drawing marks outside of graph area. Otherwise marks that cross the graph boundary are clipped so that only the part interior to the graph area is drawn. This is useful when the marks are used for annotation or plot markup rather than representing data point. See marks examples annotation.