# Sparse matrix pattern?

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/sparse-matrix-pattern/31928>\
**Category:** Visualization\
**Created:** [December 6, 2019, 11:12am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/sparse-matrix-pattern/31928 "2019-12-06T11:12:10Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![BLI](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/bli/32/37206_2.png) [@BLI](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/BLI)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2019, 11:12am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/sparse-matrix-pattern/31928/1 "2019-12-06T11:12:10Z")

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Is there a Plots command similar to MATLAB’s `spy` command to plot the sparsity pattern of a sparse matrix?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![mkborregaard](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mkborregaard/32/556_2.png) [@mkborregaard](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mkborregaard)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2019, 11:25am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/sparse-matrix-pattern/31928/2 "2019-12-06T11:25:28Z")

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Yes, it’s called `spy`

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![BLI](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/bli/32/37206_2.png) [@BLI](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/BLI)\
**Post date:** [December 6, 2019, 11:49am UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/sparse-matrix-pattern/31928/3 "2019-12-06T11:49:52Z")

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Ah. I had tried `spy`, but my original matrix was dense, so I just needed to do:

```julia
using SparseArrays
spy(sparse(A))

```

Great that it is a scatter plot, so that I can change the default dot size by

```julia
spy(sparse(A), ms=5)

```