Ternary Plot Mod for Spotfire®

The ternary plot is a barycentric plot on three variables which sum to a constant. It graphically depicts the ratios of the three variables as positions in an equilateral triangle.

It is often used in physical chemistry, petrology, mineralogy, metallurgy, and other physical sciences to show the compositions of systems composed of three species.

Data requirement

Every mod handles missing, corrupted and/or inconsistent data in different ways. It is advised to always review how the data is visualized.

To make the ternary plot work properly, the underlying data must be formatted in a certain way, with three numerical columns each representing different parts of a whole, per row.

The ternary plot assumes that values for each marker, across bottom (B), left (L) and right ® axis are a share of something normalizable to a SUM of B + L + R = 100% and the coordinates will be normalized as such.

Setting up the chart

In this example dataset, we have four columns: Sample, Quartz, Felspar, Lithics

In the ternary plot configuration in Spotfire, we would specify the 'Felspar' column as Bottom axis, 'Quartz' columns as Left axis and 'Lithics' column as Right axis. We can also use the 'Sample' column as our Color by axis.

The end result will look something like this:

Configuring the chart

Once the ternary plot has data provided, you can configure when to show or hide axis labels. The setting is accessed in Editing mode by clicking the settings button on the top right corner of the visualization.

Using the chart

The ternary plot supports marking data and filtering data. Clicking on a marker will mark it. The ternary plot also allows marking of multiple markers using rectangular marking; whilst holding down the mouse click and dragging the cursor across the chart, you can mark one or multiple markers.

To unmark all marked markers, just click the background of the visualization canvas area.

Help and support

This Mod for Spotfire® is not supported by Spotfire Support.

To suggest features and enhancements, please submit an idea in the Ideas portal.

For general questions about Mods, please post in the Forums with the topic "Mods" to make it visible and routed to the appropriate team(s) to respond.

More information about Mods for Spotfire®

• Spotfire Community Exchange: A safe and trusted place to discover ready-to-use Mods
• Developer Documentation: Introduction and tutorials for Mods developers
• Mods code examples on GitHub: A public repository for example projects