# Identify overlapping dots in plotly

**URL:** <https://community.plotly.com/t/identify-overlapping-dots-in-plotly/4897>\
**Category:** plotly.js\
**Created:** [July 11, 2017, 10:36pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/identify-overlapping-dots-in-plotly/4897 "2017-07-11T22:36:51Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![harpritc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a183cd/32.png) [@harpritc](https://community.plotly.com/u/harpritc)\
**Post date:** [July 11, 2017, 10:36pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/identify-overlapping-dots-in-plotly/4897/1 "2017-07-11T22:36:51Z")

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Hi,

I am parsing, huge file and displaying that in Plotly. There are many overlapping dots which is not visible till I zoom it.

Is there any way which can show that there are overlapping dots?

Thanks  
Harprit

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**Author:** ![etienne](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex024/user_avatar/community.plotly.com/etienne/32/17_2.png) [@etienne](https://community.plotly.com/u/etienne)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2017, 2:14pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/identify-overlapping-dots-in-plotly/4897/2 "2017-07-12T14:14:36Z")

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I’d recommend plotting your data as an `histogram2d` trace:

> **[2D Histograms](https://plot.ly/javascript/2D-Histogram/)**
>
> How to make a D3.js-based 2D histogram in javascript. A 2D histogram is a visualization of a bivariate distribution.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![harpritc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a183cd/32.png) [@harpritc](https://community.plotly.com/u/harpritc)\
**Post date:** [July 12, 2017, 4:37pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/identify-overlapping-dots-in-plotly/4897/3 "2017-07-12T16:37:40Z")

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Thank you for the reply.

Can I scale the plot to milliseconds level, so that every dot can be visible?  
I tried using dtick, but it worked only when we zoom except for the first unit where it shows the scaled version.

Can you please help me in this? As I have made the plot using scater plot , its difficult to change now to histogram.

 ![](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex024/uploads/plot/original/2X/b/b9c7d32599477e82dba53d479d9fe4d4c3a249b4.png)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![harpritc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a183cd/32.png) [@harpritc](https://community.plotly.com/u/harpritc)\
**Post date:** [July 13, 2017, 8:46pm UTC](https://community.plotly.com/t/identify-overlapping-dots-in-plotly/4897/4 "2017-07-13T20:46:51Z")

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Can you please suggest some other alternative for this?