[HN Gopher] Venn Diagram for 7 Sets
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       Venn Diagram for 7 Sets
        
       Author : bramadityaw
       Score  : 74 points
       Date   : 2025-11-04 09:27 UTC (3 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (moebio.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (moebio.com)
        
       | adverbly wrote:
       | Beautiful! I want to get this on a t-shirt!
        
       | anon291 wrote:
       | Nice! I wonder if there's a mathematical theorem to describe the
       | possible shapes for a 2-d venn diagram of N sets or if there's an
       | N for which it is no longer possible (or maybe it's possible for
       | all N!?). Probably an application of graph theory and Euler's
       | formula to determine feasibility and then something else to
       | figure out the shape constraints. Never thought about it, but an
       | interesting idea.
        
         | madcaptenor wrote:
         | It is possible for arbitrary N; one construction is called the
         | Edwards-Venn diagram. See
         | https://happyruin.wordpress.com/2013/03/24/edwards-venn-diag...
        
       | vitalnodo wrote:
       | I'm wondering what's the proper way to draw Venn diagrams. I've
       | seen that Graphviz has a "nice to have" mention about them, and
       | there are a few simple JS libraries - mostly for two sets. Here's
       | also my own attempt using an LLM [1].
       | 
       | But maybe someone knows a more general or robust solution - or a
       | better way to achieve this? In the future, I'd like to be able,
       | for example, to find the intersection between two Venn diagrams
       | of three sets each etc.
       | 
       | [1] https://vitalnodo.github.io/FSLE/
        
         | zem wrote:
         | the comments here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45742907
         | have some discussion about projects that take a "focused
         | algorithm for various different diagram types" approach vs
         | graphviz's one size fits all approach. worth checking to see if
         | any of them do venn diagrams.
        
       | cubefox wrote:
       | The website isn't working for me (Android Firefox/Chrome).
        
         | akdor1154 wrote:
         | Nor Firefox Android, even in Desktop mode.
        
         | JoBrad wrote:
         | Same for iOS.
        
       | keeeba wrote:
       | Please don't actually use these 5,6,7-way Venn diagrams for
       | anything practical, they're virtually useless and communicate
       | nothing.
        
         | paulddraper wrote:
         | Thanks, I was just about to do that!
        
         | roadside_picnic wrote:
         | Technically a _Venn_ diagram 's entire point is to visualize
         | all _possible_ set relations between N sets. Their  "practical"
         | use is explicitly visualizing this.
         | 
         | In popular terminology they are very often confused with _Euler
         | Diagrams_ [0] which represent _meaningful_ relations in sets
         | but not all possible. You shouldn 't create Euler Diagrams this
         | complex, but the raison d'etre of Venn diagrams is to visualize
         | the complex nature of set relations.
         | 
         | 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euler_diagram
        
       | kugestu wrote:
       | Really nice theoretical exercise! For practical visualization, an
       | UpSet plot is a great option: https://upset.app/
        
       | flobosg wrote:
       | Related: the 6-set banana Venn diagram -
       | https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11241/figures/4
        
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       (page generated 2025-11-07 23:00 UTC)