(This Post is part of my 30 day Data Visualization Challenge – you can follow along using the ‘challenge’ tag!)

I’ve been noodling a bit more with manipulating variables before visualization – that is, a gem’s volume is X +Y + Z, but they exist as separate columns in the actual data set. When we look at the relationship between a gem’s volume and its measured clarity:

Thoughts:
– It’s surprising to see so many regular bumps across clarities – it may be that this is related to the similar structure around carat weight, that folks prefer a cleaner, easier to understand number, which results in a little fudging around volumes.
– I wonder what the significance of this is? Is there some other relationship between volume and clarity?

Code:

> library(ggplot2)
> qplot(x+y+z, data=diamonds, binwidth=.07, color=clarity, geom="density", alpha=I(.25)) + scale_x_continuous(limits=c(10,25)) + theme_bw()

• Work