What is a Violin Plot?
Violin Plot is a method to visualize the distribution of numerical data of different variables. It is quite similar to Box Plot but with a rotated plot on each side, giving more information about the density estimate on the y-axis. The density is mirrored and flipped over, and the resulting shape is filled in, creating an image resembling a violin. The advantage of a violin plot is that it can show nuances in the distribution that aren’t perceptible in a boxplot. On the other hand, the boxplot more clearly shows the outliers in the data. Violin Plots hold more information than box plots, they are less popular. Because of their unpopularity, their meaning can be harder to grasp for many readers not familiar with the violin plot representation.
Violin Plot for Data Analysis
Data visualization is instrumental in understanding and interpreting data trends. Various visualization charts aid in comprehending data, with the violin plot standing out as a powerful tool for visualizing data distribution. This article aims to explore the fundamentals, implementation, and interpretation of violin plots.
Before applying any transformations to the features of a dataset, it is often necessary to seek answers to questions like the following:
- Are the values primarily clustered around the median?
- Alternatively, do they exhibit clustering at the extremes with a dearth of values in the middle range?
These inquiries go beyond median and mean values alone and are essential for obtaining a comprehensive understanding of the dataset. We can use a Violin plot for answering these questions.