A Compendium of Canonical Charts

June 14, 2026

In many fields there is a single canonical way to visualize a certain type of data.

Charts that are full of nice little design details - in their annotations, colors, highlights, layout, transformations, axes - that you may not see in any other field. Useful details for their very particular problem at hand and conventions that render them familiar and easy to interpret for everyone in the field, once learned.

It's not a heatmap, it's a Callan quilt. It's not a contour plot, it's a wafer chart. And so on.

I call these canonical charts. These aren't your run of the mill graphs and they aren't your performative visualizations, these are charts that do the job. And I'm fascinated by them. They have history and gravitas. It's how that data has always been visualized and it's how that data it will always be visualized.

This is a compendium of such. 70 of my favorites here and another 70 honorable mentions over there. I've tried to use real, recent data from the field for each of these charts so that you can see the graph in its natural form. If you're an expert in one of these fields and found a mistake or have feedback, please reach out.

All charts are made with Plotly, of course.

Enjoy.

Wind Rose (Meteorology, Wind Energy)

Iowa Mesonet ASOS · Des Moines (DSM) · 2023 · Code

Wind rose showing wind direction and speed frequencies from Des Moines, Iowa

Skew-T log-P (Aviation, Meteorology)

Iowa Mesonet raob API · station OUN Norman · 2024-05-12 · standard-atmosphere fallback · Code · Explanation

Skew-T log-P atmospheric sounding profile with temperature and dewpoint

Texture Triangle (Soil Science)

ISRIC WoSIS global soil horizons · Code

USDA soil texture triangle with clay, silt, and sand proportions

Piper Diagram (Hydrogeology)

USGS Water Quality Portal · Bernalillo County, NM · Piper construction after Utah Geological Survey, WellApplication · Code

Piper diagram of groundwater cation chemistry from New Mexico

Hertzsprung-Russell Diagram (Astronomy)

HYG star catalog v41 · after Wikipedia’s HRDiagram · Code

Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of stars colored by B-V color index

Spectrogram (Seismology)

IRIS FDSN · IU.ANMO BHZ · M9.1 Tōhoku · 2011-03-11 · Code

Seismic envelope, waveform, and spectrogram of the M9.1 Tohoku earthquake recorded at station IU.ANMO, showing the P, S, and surface-wave arrivals

Spectrogram (Astrophysics)

LIGO GWOSC · H1 strain · GW150914 · 2015-09-14 · Code

LIGO gravitational wave spectrogram showing the GW150914 chirp signal

Smith Chart (RF Engineering)

scikit-rf ring-slot resonator · W-band 75–110 GHz · Touchstone S1P · Code

Smith chart showing ring-slot resonator impedance locus in the W-band

Control Chart (Manufacturing Quality Control)

NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook · MAVRO.DAT · filter-transmittance series · Code

Shewhart I-chart with control limits and out-of-control signals

Levey-Jennings Chart (Clinical Lab Quality Control)

NIST MAVRO.DAT Filter Transmittance (n=50) · Code

Levey-Jennings quality control chart of 50 NIST transmittance measurements plotted against run number, with color-coded ±1SD (green), ±2SD (orange), and ±3SD (pink) zones; all points fall within ±2SD indicating an in-control process

Pareto Chart (Quality Control)

SF Open Data · 311 Cases · May 2026 · Code

Pareto chart of San Francisco 311 service request types with cumulative percentage line

Candlestick + Volume (Trading)

Yahoo Finance · AAPL daily OHLCV · 1 year · via yfinance · Code

AAPL daily candlestick chart with volume bars below

Yield Curve (Fixed Income)

US Treasury · daily par yield curve rates · 1990–2025 · Credit: Aisch & Cox, NYTimes · Code

3D surface of the US Treasury yield curve over time — maturity on one axis, year (1990–2025) on the other, rate as height

Waterfall (Corporate Finance)

Apple FY2024 10-K · fiscal year ended Sep 28, 2024 · hardcoded from filing · Code

Waterfall chart of Apple FY2024 income statement from revenue to net income

Lorenz Curve (Economics)

World Bank · US income quintile shares · SI.DST.FRST/02ND/03RD/04TH/05TH.20 · Code

Lorenz curve of US income distribution with Gini coefficient

Lorenz Attractor (Chaos Theory)

Synthetic · Lorenz (1963) σ=10, ρ=28, β=8/3 · Code

Lorenz attractor rendered as a glowing rainbow point cloud on black, forming the characteristic two-lobed butterfly strange attractor

Funnel Chart (Sales & Marketing)

FunnelAnalysis · e-commerce stage CSVs (home → search → payment → confirmation) · Code

Sales funnel from homepage visits to payment confirmation

Gantt Chart (Project Management)

plotly/datasets · GanttChart.csv · Code

Gantt chart of project tasks with resource assignments and durations

Population Pyramid (Demography)

California Dept. of Finance · population projections by age, sex, and race · Code

California population pyramid by age group and sex

Sankey Diagram (Energy)

LLNL Energy Flow Charts · United States Energy Consumption 2023 · 93.7 quads · transcribed from chart · Code

LLNL-style Sankey diagram of US energy flows in 2023, from nine primary sources through electricity generation to the four end-use sectors, each splitting into useful energy services and rejected energy

Kaplan-Meier Curve (Clinical Trials)

Rdatasets / survival::cancer · NCCTG lung cancer trial · Code

Kaplan-Meier survival curves stratified by sex with log-rank p-value

Volcano Plot (Genomics)

reneshbedre.github.io · rice RNA-seq differential expression · Code

Volcano plot of RNA-seq differential expression with significance thresholds

Poincaré Plot (Cardiology)

RHRV-team/RHRVBook · Chapter 6 · R-R interval series · Code

Poincaré plot of successive R-R intervals with SD1/SD2 ellipse

Cohort Retention Heatmap (Product Analytics)

UCI Online Retail · invoice transactions · 2010–2011 · Code

Monthly cohort retention heatmap showing customer return rates

Latency Percentile Bands (Observability)

Microsoft Azure Public Dataset · Azure Functions 2021 invocation trace · Code

Serverless latency p50/p90/p99 percentile bands over time

Latency Heatmap (Observability)

Microsoft Azure Public Dataset · Azure Functions 2021 invocation trace · Code

Latency heatmap showing duration distribution by log-spaced latency buckets

Commit Punchcard (DevOps)

GitHub API · plotly/plotly.js · commit punchcard stats · Code

GitHub commit punchcard showing activity by day and hour

Commit Activity Heatmap (DevOps)

GitHub API · plotly/plotly.js · weekly commit activity · Code

GitHub-style commit activity heatmap showing weekly contributions by day of week

Flame Graph (Performance Engineering)

brendangregg/FlameGraph · folded-stack format · synthetic web server profile · Code

Flame graph of call stack samples showing CPU time distribution

Network Waterfall (Web Performance)

Chrome HAR format · synthetic page load · DNS/connect/SSL/send/wait/receive phases · Code

Network waterfall chart showing HTTP request timing phases for a page load

Daily Temperature Range (Meteorology)

Open-Meteo archive API · New York City · 2024 · Code

Daily high-low temperature bars for New York City showing observed and forecast

Open-Meteo · San Francisco · 7-day observed + 5-day forecast · live · Code

San Francisco daily high/low temperature bars: 7 past days in violet, 5-day forecast in orange, with temperature labels

Growth Chart (Pediatrics)

CDC LMS Weight-for-Age (Girls 2–20 yr) · Code

CDC weight-for-age percentile curves for girls ages 24–240 months, showing P3 through P97 lines with shaded P5–P95 band and an orange sample child tracking at the 50th percentile

Audiogram (Audiology)

NHANES 2017-18 Audiometry (n=3,131) · Code

Audiogram showing NHANES 2017-18 population median hearing thresholds at 500–8000 Hz for right ear (red circles) and left ear (blue X marks), with the y-axis reversed per audiogram convention showing 0 dB HL at top

ECG Strip (Cardiology)

PhysioNet MIT-BIH Record 100 (Lead II) · Code

Two-and-a-half second Lead II ECG strip from PhysioNet MIT-BIH record 100, plotted in black on a pink ECG grid with 0.2s/0.5mV major divisions, showing normal sinus rhythm with clear P, QRS, and T waves

Swimmer Plot (Oncology)

Rotterdam Breast Cancer Dataset (n=50 sample) · Code

Horizontal swimmer plot for 50 Rotterdam breast cancer patients sorted by follow-up duration, with violet bars for chemotherapy patients and teal bars for no-chemotherapy, pink diamond markers at recurrence events, and black triangle markers at death

Well-Log Strip Plot (Petrophysics)

andymcdgeo/Petrophysics-Python-Series (GitHub) · Code

Four-track well-log strip plot sharing a reversed depth axis: gamma ray (green), density and neutron porosity overlay, resistivity on log scale, and caliper (orange).

Borehole Striplog (Geology)

Kennetcook #2 (P-129) well, Agile striplog (GitHub) · Code

Composite well log for the Kennetcook #2 (P-129) borehole: gamma-ray, bulk density, neutron porosity and deep resistivity curves beside a USGS-patterned lithology column, all on a shared reversed depth axis, with three colour-coded highlighted intervals each expanded into its own zoomed sub-view panel on an independent depth axis at right.

Duck Curve (Grid Operations)

dlevonian/california_renewables CAISO data (GitHub) · Code

Duck curve showing net load by hour of day for five spring days in California, with the characteristic solar midday belly and steep evening ramp-up visible across multiple overlaid lines.

Efficient Frontier (Portfolio Management)

Yahoo Finance via yfinance (SPY, AGG, GLD, VNQ, EFA, EEM, IWM — 5yr daily) · Code

Scatter plot of 3,000 simulated portfolios on a risk-return plane, colored by Sharpe ratio with the efficient frontier line overlaid and min-variance and max-Sharpe portfolios marked

Callan Quilt (Asset Allocation)

Yahoo Finance via yfinance (7 ETFs — 15yr annual) · Code

Heatmap showing annual returns for seven ETFs ranked best to worst each year, with red cells for negative returns and green for positive

Recession-Shaded Series (Macroeconomics)

FRED — UNRATE + USREC (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) · Code

Line chart of the US unemployment rate since 1948 with NBER recession periods shaded in gray

BCG Matrix (Strategy)

Rdatasets — AER::Grunfeld (firm investment and value panel data) · Code

Bubble scatter plot of ten firms positioned in four BCG quadrants (Stars, Cash Cows, Question Marks, Dogs) by log relative market share and investment CAGR

Marimekko Chart (Business)

Rdatasets — datasets::UCBAdmissions (UC Berkeley graduate admissions 1973) · Code

Variable-width stacked bar chart where each column represents a UC Berkeley department with width proportional to total applicants and height split between admitted and rejected shares

Diverging Likert Bar (Market Research)

Rdatasets — bayesrules::pulse_of_the_nation (US public opinion survey) · Code

Horizontal diverging stacked bar chart showing agreement distribution for trump approval, science is honest, and vaccines are safe survey items, bars extending left for disagreement and right for agreement

Constellation Diagram (Digital Comms)

Computed (16-QAM Gray code + AWGN) · Code

16-QAM constellation diagram: 2000 received symbols scattered around 16 ideal points in the IQ plane, with AWGN noise at SNR=15 dB

Carpet Plot (Aerospace)

bcdunbar/datasets (airfoil geometry) + synthetic Cp · Code

Carpet plot of airfoil geometry with contour overlay of synthetic pressure coefficient, showing suction peak near the leading edge

LiDAR Point Cloud (3D) (Remote Sensing)

Computed (synthetic building/ground/tree scene) · Code

3D LiDAR point cloud of a synthetic urban scene: flat ground plane, a 40x40x15m building, and five conical trees, colored by elevation

Shot Chart (Basketball)

sealneaward/nba-movement-data (James Harden) · Code

NBA shot chart heat map for James Harden showing shot density across the half court with 3-point arc and paint outlined

Win-Probability Chart (Broadcast Sports)

nflverse play-by-play 2023 (MIN vs LV, Week 14) · Code

NFL win-probability chart for the closest game of 2023 (MIN vs LV): home win probability line crosses 50% 31 times over 3600 seconds

Strike-Zone / Spray Chart (Baseball)

MLB Statcast (Mike Trout, May 2018) · Code

Two-panel baseball chart: left shows strike-zone pitch location heat map for Mike Trout with rulebook zone overlay; right shows spray chart of batted ball locations

Yield Map (Precision Agriculture)

KBS LTER harvest monitor data (767k rows, 5k sampled) · Code

Precision agriculture yield map: 5000 geo-referenced points colored by crop flow intensity on a red-yellow-green scale over the KBS LTER field

Marey / String-Line Diagram (Rail)

Amtrak GTFS (Lincoln Service, Chicago-St. Louis, 8 trips) · Code

Marey string-line diagram for Amtrak Lincoln Service: 8 trips between Chicago and St. Louis plotted as time vs distance, with slope indicating train speed

Hurricane Track + Spaghetti (Meteorology)

NHC HURDAT2 1851-2023 (Katrina + 4 major storms) · Code

Atlantic hurricane tracks: Katrina (2005) path colored by wind intensity category with marker size proportional to wind speed, plus spaghetti lines for Irma, Michael, Dorian, and Matthew

Kobe Plot (Fisheries)

Computed (synthetic N. Atlantic swordfish stock trajectory 1970-2020) · Code

Kobe plot for North Atlantic swordfish: stock trajectory from 1970 to 2020 in B/Bmsy vs U/Umsy space, moving from the sustainable green quadrant through the red overfished zone and back

Market Map (Finance Terminal)

yfinance / S&P 500 constituents (GitHub datasets) · Code

Treemap of S&P 500 top 50 stocks sized by market cap and colored by daily percent change, with green cells for gainers and red for losers, grouped by GICS sector

Price Panel (Technical Analysis)

yfinance (AAPL 1-year daily OHLCV) · Code

Three-panel chart for AAPL: top panel shows candlestick with 20-day Bollinger Bands, middle shows RSI-14 with 30/70 reference lines, bottom shows MACD histogram plus signal line

Drawdown Chart (Risk)

yfinance (SPY daily close, 2000–present) · Code

Red filled underwater chart showing SPY drawdown from all-time highs since 2000, with annotated GFC bottom near -55% in March 2009 and COVID bottom near -34% in March 2020

Correlation Matrix (Portfolio)

yfinance (SPY/IWM/EFA/EEM/VNQ/GLD/DBC/AGG/TLT/TIP/HYG/BIL 3-year returns) · Code

Lower-triangle correlation heatmap of 12 asset-class ETFs over three years, grouped into equities, real assets, bonds and cash, with cells shaded in discrete bands from green (uncorrelated) to pink (highly correlated) and the numeric correlation in each cell

Order-Book Depth Chart (Market Microstructure)

Coinbase Exchange API (BTC-USD level-2 order book) · Code

Step-filled depth chart showing cumulative BTC bid size in green and ask size in red within 2 percent of the mid-price, with a dotted vertical line at the current mid-price

Stem Plot (DSP)

numpy computed · Code

Stem plot of 50-sample damped sinusoid x[n]=exp(−0.1n)·sin(2πn/10): violet lollipop markers on vertical stems from baseline, showing exponential decay envelope

Radiation Pattern (Antenna Engineering)

numpy computed · Code

Polar radiation pattern for an 8-element broadside uniform linear array (d=0.5λ): main lobe at 90°/270°, sidelobes visible in dB scale from −40 to 0 dB

Phase Portrait (Nonlinear Dynamics)

scipy.integrate computed · Code

Van der Pol oscillator (μ=1) phase portrait: five trajectories from different initial conditions converging to the limit cycle at amplitude ≈2, background quiver field shows vector field

Spectral Waterfall (Signal Processing)

LIGO GWOSC GW150914 · Code

3D spectral waterfall of LIGO H1 strain data: 16 time segments × 741 frequency bins (30–400 Hz), whitened and bandpass-filtered power shown as a surface with time, frequency, and dB axes

Wafer Bin Map (Semiconductor)

WaferGuard HuggingFace dataset · Code

52×52 wafer bin map heatmap showing pass (green) and fail (pink) dies in a circular wafer boundary, defect classes: Center+Edge-Loc+Random

Wafer Parametric Contour (Semiconductor)

Computed — CMP oxide model (no keyless parametric data) · Code

Filled contour plot of oxide thickness (Å) across a normalized wafer, with labeled isolines and circular wafer boundary, RdYlGn colorscale centered at 100 Å

Ashby Chart (Materials Science)

OpenMaterialsSelector (mrealpe) · Code

Log-log scatter of density vs Young's modulus for 2702 materials colored by family (Metal, Polymer, Ceramic, Composite, etc.)

Ragone Plot (Energy Storage)

Fabricated representative numbers · Code

Ragone plot on log-log axes: translucent ellipses for Supercapacitor, Li-ion, NiMH, Lead-acid, and Fuel cell showing specific energy vs specific power ranges, with diagonal constant-discharge-time guide lines

Corner Plot (Bayesian Inference)

Computed — synthetic multivariate posterior (seed 42) · Code

3x3 corner plot grid showing marginal histograms on the diagonal for theta-1, theta-2, theta-3 and 2D joint density histograms in the lower triangle, illustrating positive correlation between theta-1 and theta-2 and negative correlation between theta-1 and theta-3