2.5 circles

The circles style plots a circle with an explicit radius at each data point. Three columns of data are required: x, y, radius. An optional 4th column may be used to specify color information. The radius is always interpreted in the units of the plot’s horizontal axis (x or x2). The scale on y and the aspect ratio of the plot are both ignored. If only two columns are present, the radius is taken from ‘set style circle‘. In this case the radius may be given in graph or screen coordinates.

Example (draws circles whose area is proportional to the value in column 3):

    set style fill transparent solid 0.2 noborder
    plot 'data' using 1:2:(sqrt($3)) with circles, \
         'data' using 1:2 with linespoints

The result is similar to using a ‘points‘ plot with variable size points and pointstyle 6, except that the circles will scale with the x axis range. See also ‘set object circle‘ and ‘fillstyle‘.