# Ellipses

The ellipses style plots an ellipse at each data point. This style is only relevant for 2D plotting. Each ellipse is described in terms of its center, major and minor diameters, and the angle between its major diameter and the x axis.

        2 columns: x y
        3 columns: x y major_diam
        4 columns: x y major_diam minor_diam
        5 columns: x y major_diam minor_diam angle

If only two input columns are present, they are taken as the coordinates of the centers, and the ellipses will be drawn with the default extent (see set style ellipse (p. )). The orientation of the ellipse, which is defined as the angle between the major diameter and the plot's x axis, is taken from the default ellipse style (see set style ellipse (p. )). If three input columns are provided, the third column is used for both diameters. The orientation angle defaults to zero. If four columns are present, they are interpreted as x, y, major diameter, minor diameter. Note that these are diameters, not radii. An optional 5th column may specify the orientation angle in degrees. The ellipses will also be drawn with their default extent if either of the supplied diameters in the 3-4-5 column form is negative.

In all of the above cases, optional variable color data may be given in an additional last (3th, 4th, 5th or 6th) column. See colorspec (p. ).

By default, the major diameter is interpreted in the units of the plot's horizontal axis (x or x2) while the minor diameter in that of the vertical (y or y2). If the x and y axis scales are not equal, the major/minor diameter ratio will no longer be correct after rotation. This can be changed with the units keyword, however.

There are three alternatives: if units xy is included in the plot specification, the axes will be scaled as described above. units xx ensures that both diameters are interpreted in units of the x axis, while units yy means that both diameters are interpreted in units of the y axis. In the latter two cases the ellipses will have the correct aspect ratio, even if the plot is resized. If units is omitted from the plot command, the setting from set style ellipse will be used.

Example (draws ellipses, cycling through the available line types):

       plot 'data' using 1:2:3:4:(0):0 with ellipses

See also set object ellipse (p. ), set style ellipse (p. ) and fillstyle (p. ).