Visualise: explore your data with a Histogram node
Plot a distribution straight from the canvas
Once you have a clean table, you can see its shape without leaving KNIME. A Histogram node takes a table in and produces an interactive chart view — useful for spotting the distribution of a measurement before you model anything.
- 1 Take the clean table from your previous workflow (or any executed table on the canvas).
- 2 Add a Histogram node and wire your table into its input port.
- 3 Configure it to plot the numeric column you care about.
- 4 Execute the node and open its view to see the distribution.
An interactive histogram of one of your columns opens from the node's view.
Visualisation is a node, and the view is part of the recipe
Charts in KNIME are not a separate tool — they are nodes wired into the same canvas, so a visualisation re-runs and reproduces exactly like any other step. When you open the Histogram node's view, you get an interactive chart produced by the same pipeline execution — not a separate export you have to remember how you made.
In KNIME a chart is produced by a node like the Histogram, wired into the workflow like every other step. Because the visualisation lives on the canvas, it re-runs and reproduces with the rest of the pipeline — the figure is part of the shareable recipe, not a one-off export you have to remember how you made.
- ?Why is a chart built as a node easier to keep in sync with the data than a figure pasted into a slide?
- ?What does seeing a column's distribution before modelling tell you that a summary number might hide?
- ?How would a collaborator regenerate this exact figure from your workflow?
Add an exploration view to your pipeline
Wire a visualisation into your real workflow so it produces an exploration figure every time it runs.
Extend your clean-table workflow with a visualisation node that plots a column you care about.
- 1 Wire a Histogram (or another visualisation node) into your clean table from the previous lesson.
- 2 Configure it to plot a meaningful measurement column.
- 3 Execute and open the view; adjust the column or settings until the figure is informative.
- 4 Save the workflow so the figure regenerates whenever the pipeline re-runs.
A saved workflow that outputs both a clean table and an interactive exploration figure.