Bubble Chart

A bubble chart is used to display three dimensions of data at the same time. The location of the bubble is determined by the first two dimensions and the corresponding horizontal and vertical axes. The third dimension is represented by the size of the individual bubbles.

const config = { type: 'bubble', data: data, options: {} };

const config = {
  type: 'bubble',
  data: data,
  options: {}
};

const data = { datasets: [{ label: 'First Dataset', data: [{ x: 20, y: 30, r: 15 }, { x: 40, y: 10, r: 10 }], backgroundColor: 'rgb(255, 99, 132)' }] };

const data = {
  datasets: [{
    label: 'First Dataset',
    data: [{
      x: 20,
      y: 30,
      r: 15
    }, {
      x: 40,
      y: 10,
      r: 10
    }],
    backgroundColor: 'rgb(255, 99, 132)'
  }]
};

Dataset Properties

Namespaces:

• data.datasets[index] - options for this dataset only
• options.datasets.bubble - options for all bubble datasets
• options.elements.point - options for all point elements
• options - options for the whole chart

The bubble chart allows a number of properties to be specified for each dataset. These are used to set display properties for a specific dataset. For example, the colour of the bubbles is generally set this way.

Name	Type	Scriptable	Indexable	Default
backgroundColor	Color	Yes	Yes	'rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1)'
borderColor	Color	Yes	Yes	'rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1)'
borderWidth	number	Yes	Yes	3
clip	number|object|false	-	-	undefined
data	object[]	-	-	required
drawActiveElementsOnTop	boolean	Yes	Yes	true
hoverBackgroundColor	Color	Yes	Yes	undefined
hoverBorderColor	Color	Yes	Yes	undefined
hoverBorderWidth	number	Yes	Yes	1
hoverRadius	number	Yes	Yes	4
hitRadius	number	Yes	Yes	1
label	string	-	-	undefined
order	number	-	-	0
pointStyle	pointStyle	Yes	Yes	'circle'
rotation	number	Yes	Yes	0
radius	number	Yes	Yes	3

All these values, if undefined, fallback to the scopes described in option resolution

General

Name	Description
clip	How to clip relative to chartArea. Positive value allows overflow, negative value clips that many pixels inside chartArea. 0 = clip at chartArea. Clipping can also be configured per side: clip: {left: 5, top: false, right: -2, bottom: 0}
drawActiveElementsOnTop	Draw the active bubbles of a dataset over the other bubbles of the dataset
label	The label for the dataset which appears in the legend and tooltips.
order	The drawing order of dataset. Also affects order for tooltip and legend. more

Styling

The style of each bubble can be controlled with the following properties:

Name	Description
backgroundColor	bubble background color.
borderColor	bubble border color.
borderWidth	bubble border width (in pixels).
pointStyle	bubble shape style.
rotation	bubble rotation (in degrees).
radius	bubble radius (in pixels).

All these values, if undefined, fallback to the associated elements.point.* options.

Interactions

The interaction with each bubble can be controlled with the following properties:

Name	Description
hitRadius	bubble additional radius for hit detection (in pixels).
hoverBackgroundColor	bubble background color when hovered.
hoverBorderColor	bubble border color when hovered.
hoverBorderWidth	bubble border width when hovered (in pixels).
hoverRadius	bubble additional radius when hovered (in pixels).

All these values, if undefined, fallback to the associated elements.point.* options.

Default Options

We can also change the default values for the Bubble chart type. Doing so will give all bubble charts created after this point the new defaults. The default configuration for the bubble chart can be accessed at Chart.overrides.bubble.

Data Structure

Bubble chart datasets need to contain a data array of points, each point represented by an object containing the following properties:

{
    // X Value
    x: number,
    // Y Value
    y: number,
    // Bubble radius in pixels (not scaled).
    r: number
}

Important: the radius property, r is not scaled by the chart, it is the raw radius in pixels of the bubble that is drawn on the canvas.

Internal data format

{x, y, _custom} where _custom is the radius.