Multi-Plot Grids Usage

Simply put, a multi-plot grid (also known as small multiples), is a grid of multiple plots. The grid can be of any size and shape according to the needs of our data. The plots inside the grids can also vary according our requirements. Multi-plot grids are utilized when we’re interested in plotting multiple identical or unique plots for the same (or different) variables along different subsets of our data. Multi-plot grids can be handy for extracting complex patterns from the data. They’re an excellent choice for delivering concise and meaningful information quickly.

Let’s go through different scenarios where using multi-plot grids would be helpful or is crucial. For example, let’s say we have a large dataset containing many features. We’ve been tasked with training multiple machine learning models on the data and reporting the final results. Training multiple models on this kind of data would be costly in terms of space and time complexity. There are many approaches to dealing with high-dimensional data. To narrow down features, one option could be visualizing the relationship between different variables and checking which features add vital information and which may just be redundant.

Visualizing the variables in the grids can give us an overall picture of the relationship between different variables. For example, in the figure below, we visualize various features of seaborn’s diamonds dataset. We analyze the features price, table, and depth for various diamond cuts through different visualizations drawn in the multi-plot grids.

Likewise, another scenario where we can utilize a multi-plot grid could be ...