Inspect crowded points with the loupe

On a dense scatter plot, points pile up until you cannot tell one mark from the next. The loupe is a magnifier that opens over the marks under your cursor and spreads them apart, so you can read a crowded corner and act on a single point without filtering the chart first. It works on scatter plots in Analyze and on scatter tiles in a dashboard.

Open the loupe

Move your cursor over a spot where marks overlap. A ring marks the lens on the chart, and a round panel opens just above and to the right of it with those marks spread apart: their positions are scaled up by the zoom while every mark keeps its real size. Marks sitting on the exact same spot fan out into a small ring or spiral with legs back to where they really are, and a stack shows a count badge such as "×3" rather than a single dot. While the loupe is open the chart's ordinary cursor tooltip stands down, and a crosshair marks the mark nearest the panel's center with its tooltip beside it.

Read what it shows

• Summary ring - a ring around the panel sums the marks it holds by their Color value, largest slice first. A Color field that isn't a category gets one plain ring instead.
• Rim labels - each mark is named in a column down either side of the panel, joined to its point by a leg. When there are more than fit, the rest are counted, for example "9 unlabeled · zoom in".
• Stacks - hovering a count badge or a leg picks out that stack of marks and names where they sit, as a range when their values differ.

Pin it and pick a mark

Click once to pin the loupe in place without selecting the mark underneath. Pinned, click a spread-out mark to select it the normal way - Command-click (Ctrl-click on Windows) adds to the selection - and the usual selection card opens just outside the loupe, so it stays put for your next pick. From there you can keep only those marks, exclude them, see the rows behind them, or copy a mark's label and value, the same actions you get anywhere on a chart. Press Esc or click outside to let the loupe go.

Zoom the loupe from 1.5× up to 12× with the bar on the panel, the + and − keys, or Command-scroll (Ctrl-scroll on Windows). The loupe reopens at the zoom you last chose on that chart.

Choose when it appears

Open the format pane and find the Loupe control in the scatter options. It has three choices:

• Overlaps - the default. The loupe appears only where marks overlap.
• Always - the loupe follows your cursor anywhere over the plot, empty spots included.
• Off - never show the loupe.