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SAS/GRAPH(R) 9.2 Reference

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What's New

What's New in SAS/GRAPH 9.2

Overview

The changes and enhancements for SAS/GRAPH 9.2 are very extensive. Highlights include the following:

  • The new SAS/GRAPH statistical graphics suite provides a new set of procedures, a new language, and a graph editor specifically designed for creating and editing statistical graphics.

  • All SAS/GRAPH procedures now support ODS styles for all devices.

  • SAS/GRAPH now automatically selects an appropriate device and style for all open destinations.

  • SAS/GRAPH now provides TrueColor support, which allows over 16 million colors in a single image.

  • The new Network Visualization Workshop enables you to visualize and investigate the patterns and relationships hidden in network data (node-link data).

  • The new GKPI procedure generates several key performance indicators.

  • The new GTILE procedure generates tile charts.

  • The new GEOCODE procedure enables you to add geographic coordinates to data sets that contain location information such as mailing addresses or to perform geolocation with non-address location data.

  • The new GINSIDE procedure determines which polygon in a map data set contains the geographic coordinates in your input data set.

  • All procedures now support graphics output filenames up to 256 characters long.

  • Many procedures have significant enhancements and new options. See Procedures for a complete list.

  • The new Scalable Vector Graphics devices enable you to generate SVG output.

  • Several new map data sets, as well as new feature data sets, have been added to the MAPS library. Several existing map data sets have been updated.

The SAS/GRAPH Statistical Graphics Suite

ODS Statistical Graphics (referred to as ODS Graphics for short) is major new functionality for creating statistical graphics that is available in a number of SAS software products, including SAS/STAT, SAS/ETS, SAS/QC, and SAS/GRAPH. Many statistical procedures have been enabled to use this functionality, and these procedures now produce graphs as automatically as they produce tables. In addition, the new statistical graphics (SG) family of SAS/GRAPH procedures use this functionality to produce plots for exploratory data analysis and customized statistical displays.

ODS Graphics includes the new SAS/GRAPH statistical graphics suite. This suite provides the following new features:

SAS/GRAPH statistical graphics procedures

provide a simple syntax for creating graphics commonly used in exploratory data analysis and for creating customized statistical displays. These new procedures include the SGPANEL, SGPLOT, and SGSCATTER procedures. In addition, the SGRENDER procedure provides a SAS procedure interface to the new Graph Template Language. For more information, see the SAS/GRAPH: Statistical Graphics Procedures Guide.

Graph Template Language (GTL)

is the underlying language for the default templates that are provided by SAS for procedures that use ODS Statistical Graphics. You can use the GTL either to modify these templates or to create your own highly customized graphs. Templates written with the GTL are built with the TEMPLATE procedure. For more information about Graph Template Language, see the SAS/GRAPH: Graph Template Language Reference and the SAS/GRAPH: Graph Template Language User's Guide.

ODS Graphics Editor

is an interactive editor that enables you to edit and enhance graphs that are produced by procedures that use ODS Statistical Graphics. You can use the ODS graphics editor to modify the existing elements of a graph such as titles and labels, or to add features such as text annotation for data points. For more information about the ODS graphics editor, see the SAS/GRAPH Help and SAS/GRAPH: ODS Graphics Editor User's Guide.

Note:   For information on the ODS Statistical Graphics functionality, see SAS Output Delivery System: User's Guide and SAS/STAT User's Guide, Volumes 1, 2, and 3.  [cautionend]

The SAS/GRAPH Network Visualization Workshop

The Network Visualization (NV) Workshop application enables you to visualize and investigate the patterns and relationships hidden in network data (node-link data). Some common applications that use network data include supply chains, communication networks, Web sites, database schema, and software module dependencies. NV Workshop is designed for visualizing large networks. Using a combination of data tables, statistical graphs, and network graphs, NV Workshop enables you to extract information that would otherwise remain hidden. Help is available from the menu within the product. To start NV Workshop, select Start [arrow] Programs [arrow] SAS [arrow] SAS GRAPH NV Workshop 2.1.

Support for Multiple Open ODS Destinations

If you have multiple ODS destinations open, SAS/GRAPH automatically selects the appropriate device for each destination. In addition, each graph uses the ODS style associated with each destination. You do not need to specify a device or style to get optimal results. For example, if you do not specify a device, then SAS/GRAPH automatically selects the PNG device for the HTML destination if it is open and the SASEMF device for the RTF destination.

Also, if you have multiple ODS destinations open and you are using a device other than the Java or ActiveX devices (ACTIVEX, JAVA, ACTXIMG, or JAVAIMG), a different GRSEG is created for each open destination. The GRSEGs for the first destination are stored in WORK.GSEG. The GRSEGs for any other open destinations are stored in catalogs named according to the destinations, for example, WORK.HTML.

Support for ODS Styles

All SAS/GRAPH procedures and devices now support ODS styles. By default, all colors, fonts, symbols, and graph sizes are derived from the current style. Procedure statement options and SAS/GRAPH GOPTIONS override individual elements of the style, so you can easily customize the appearance of any graph.

Additionally, the colors used by the styles have been updated to enhance the appearance of your graphics output.

The use of ODS styles by default is controlled by the GSTYLE system option.

Device Drivers

  • The new Scalable Vector Graphics devices enable you to create and view SVG graphs. The SVG devices (SVG, SVGZ, SVGView, and SVGT) are supported for the LISTING and HTML destinations.

  • The default device driver for the ODS HTML destination has changed from GIF to PNG, which provides TrueColor support. The PNG device may result in graphs that have spacing or size differences, such as slightly narrower bars in bar charts.

  • Data tips are now supported by the JAVAIMG device.

  • Several device drivers have been added for compatibility with previous releases of SAS/GRAPH. These drivers are named Zdriver, where driver is the name of the driver in previous releases.

    • The following drivers ignore the FONTRENDERING= system option and force host font rendering (see Fonts and Font Rendering): ZGIF, ZGIF733, ZGIFANIM, ZJPEG, ZPNG, ZSASBMP, ZTIFFB, ZTIFFBII, ZTIFFBMM, ZTIFFG3, ZTIFFG4, and ZTIFFP.

    • The following drivers support printer-resident fonts only: ZPCL5, ZPDF, ZPDFC, ZPSCOLOR, ZPSEPSFC, ZPSL, and ZPSLEPSF. They will not work well with ODS styles (see Support for ODS Styles) because they do not support TrueType fonts which are used by the styles.

Colors

  • SAS/GRAPH now provides TrueColor support, which allows over 16 million colors in a single image.

  • The number of colors in the default colors list has been increased to 38.

Fonts and Font Rendering

  • The following fonts are now obsolete: DAVID, NHIRA, NKATA.

  • Some of the characters in the Hebrew font are mapped differently to the Roman character set than they were previously.

  • Fonts are now rendered using the FreeType engine. This new font rendering might result in fonts appearing larger than they did in previous versions of SAS/GRAPH. See also Changing the Appearance of Output to Match That of Earlier SAS Releases.

  • Many new TrueType fonts have been added. These new fonts are listed in TrueType Fonts Supplied by SAS.

TrueType Fonts Supplied by SAS
Albany AMT* Thorndale Duospace WT SC GungsuhChe
Cumberland AMT* Thorndale Duospace WT TC Dotum
Thorndale AMT* Arial Symbol* DotumChe
Symbol MT Times New Roman Symbol* Gulim
Monotype Sorts MS PMincho GulimChe
Monotype Sans WT J MS Mincho NSimSun
Monotype Sans WT K MS PGothic SimHei
Monotype Sans WT SC MS UI Gothic SimSun
Monotype Sans WT TC Batang PMingLiU
Thorndale Duospace WT J BatangChe MingLiU
Thorndale Duospace WT K Gungsuh HeiT
* Albany AMT, Cumberland AMT, Thorndale AMT, Arial Symbol, and Times New Roman Symbol are font families. Normal, bold, italic, and bold italic versions of these fonts are provided.

Changing the Appearance of Output to Match That of Earlier SAS Releases

SAS/GRAPH 9.2 introduces many new features that significantly change the default appearance of your SAS/GRAPH output. To produce output that looks as if it was produced with previous versions of SAS/GRAPH, do the following:

  • Specify the NOGSTYLE system option. This option turns off the default use of ODS styles.

  • Specify the FONTRENDERING=HOST_PIXELS system option. This option determines how fonts are rendered.

  • Specify DEVICE=ZGIF on the GOPTIONS statement when you are sending output to the HTML destination.

  • In other cases where your application specifies a device, specify a compatible Z device driver if applicable. See Device Drivers for more information.

Procedures


Support for Long Filenames

The NAME= option for each procedure has been enhanced to allow you to specify filenames up to 256 characters long for graphics output files (PNG files, GIF files, and so on). See the documentation for the specific SAS/GRAPH procedures for more information.


GAREABAR Procedure

The GAREABAR procedure has the following new options and enhancements:

  • The GAREABAR procedure now supports the BY and LEGEND statements.

  • The CONTINUOUS option enables you to display a range of numeric values along the width axis.

  • The DESCRIPTION= option specifies the description of the catalog entry for the plot.

  • The LEGEND= option assigns the specified LEGEND definition to the legend generated by the SUBGROUP= option.

  • The NOLEGEND option suppresses the legend automatically generated by the SUBGROUP= option.


GBARLINE Procedure

The GBARLINE procedure has the following new options and enhancements:

  • The PLOT statement supports the creation of multiple plot lines on a single bar chart.

  • The SUBGROUP= option divides the bar into segments according to the values of the SUBGROUP variable values.

  • The HTML= option on the PLOT statement supports data tips and drill-down links on the markers of the line plot.

  • The HTML_LEGEND= option supports data tips and drill-down legend links.

  • The IMAGEMAP= option enables you to generate an image map with drill-down functionality in an HTML file.

  • The LEGEND= option enables you to generate both BAR and PLOT legends.

  • The LEVELS=ALL option has been enhanced to display any number of midpoints.

  • The ASCENDING and DESCENDING options now join plot points from left-to-right by default when the bars are reordered.

  • The PLOT statement now supports several options for references lines on the plot (right) response axis.

    • The AUTOREF option draws a reference line at each major tick mark.

    • The REF= option draws reference lines at the specified positions.

    • The CREF=, LREF=, and WREF= options enable you to specify the color, line style, and width of user-defined reference lines.

    • The CAUTOREF=, LAUTOREF=, and WAUTOREF= options enable you to specify the color, line style, and width of AUTOREF lines.

  • The WREF= and WAUTOREF= options on the BAR statement enable you to specify the width of reference lines on the bar (left) response axis.

  • The PLOT statement now supports the following options:

    CAXIS=

    specifies a color for the tick marks and the axis area frame

    CTEXT=

    specifies a color for all text on the plot response axis and legend

    NOAXIS

    suppresses the right PLOT response axis.


GCHART Procedure

The GCHART procedure has the following new options and enhancements:

  • The COUTLINE= option has been enhanced to include outlines on cylinder-shaped bars.

  • The GAXIS= option is now supported by ACTIVEX, ACTXIMG, JAVA, and JAVAIMG.

  • The MAXIS= option is now supported by ACTIVEX, ACTXIMG, JAVA, and JAVAIMG.

  • The NOPLANE option enables you to remove walls from 3D bar charts.

  • The PCTSUM option in the HBAR statement displays a column of percentages for the sum variable values.

  • The new PCTSUMLABEL= option enables you to specify the text for the column label for the PCTSUM statistic in the table of statistics.

  • The PLABEL= option enables you to specify the font, height, and color of pie slice labels.

  • The NOZERO option on the BAR statement is now supported by the JAVA and JAVAIMG devices.

  • The RADIUS= option on the PIE statement enables you to specify the radius of the pie chart.

  • The RAXIS= option is now supported by ACTIVEX, ACTXIMG, JAVA, and JAVAIMG.

  • The SHAPE= option on BLOCK statement is now supported by ACTIVEX, ACTXIMG, JAVA, and JAVAIMG.

  • The WREF= and WAUTOREF= options enable you to specify the width of reference lines.

  • The pie and bar name variable now support up to 256 characters.


GCONTOUR Procedure

The GCONTOUR procedure has the following changes and enhancements.

  • When used with the Java and ActiveX devices, the LJOIN option displays filled contour areas with separated by contour lines.

  • When used with the Java and ActiveX devices, the SMOOTH option produces smooth gradient areas between levels.

  • The WAUTOHREF= and WAUTOVREF= options specify the line width for reference lines generated with the AUTOHREF and AUTOVREF options, respectively.

  • The WHREF= and WVREF= options specify the line width for reference lines generated with the HREF= and VREF= options, respectively.


GEOCODE Procedure

The new GEOCODE procedure enables you to add geographic coordinates (latitude and longitude) to data sets that contain location information such as mailing addresses. You can also perform geolocation, which is adding geographic coordinates to non-address locations such as sale territories or IP addresses.


GINSIDE Procedure

The new GINSIDE procedure determines which polygon in a map data set contains the X and Y coordinates in your input data set. For example, if your input data set contains coordinates within Canada, you can use the GINSIDE procedure to identify the province for each data point.


GKPI Procedure

The new GKPI procedure generates key performance indicators, including sliders, bullet graphs, speedometers, dials, and traffic lights. This GKPI procedure is supported by the JAVAIMG device only.


GMAP Procedure

The GMAP procedure has the following new features:

  • The AREA statement enables you to control the appearance of regions in block maps and prism maps.

  • The CDEFAULT= option specifies the color for empty map areas.

  • The DENSITY= option enables you to reduce the number of map points that are drawn.

  • The RELZERO= option specifies that the heights of bars and regions are relative to zero, rather than the minimum value.

  • The STATISTIC= option specifies a statistic to use for the response variable.

  • The STRETCH option stretches the extents of a map to fill the output device.

  • The UNIFORM option specifies that each map that is created when you use the BY statement uses the same colors and legend.

  • The WOUTLINE= option on the BLOCK and CHORO statements is now supported by the JAVA and JAVAIMG devices.


GPLOT Procedure

The GPLOT procedure has the following new options and enhancements:

  • The BFILL= option allows you to generate gradient, solid-filled bubble plots.

  • The FRONTREF= option specifies that reference lines are drawn in front of filled areas.

  • The OVERLAY option is no longer required to display a legend when the PLOT (or PLOT2 ) statement specifies only one plot.

  • The WAUTOHREF= and WAUTOVREF= options specify the line width for reference lines generated with the AUTOHREF and AUTOVREF options, respectively.

  • The WHREF= and WVREF= options specify the line width for reference lines generated with the HREF= and VREF= options, respectively.

  • Enhanced features in box plots enable you to click on the interior of the boxes for simple drill-down functionality. Previously, you could click only on visible box elements. Now, you can click anywhere inside the box to drill down to more detailed data.


GPROJECT Procedure

The NODATELINE option enables contiguous projections when projecting maps that cross the line between 180 degrees and -180 degrees longitude.

The following options for the GPROJECT procedure have been renamed:

Old Name New Name
DEGREE DEGREES
PARALEL1 PARALLEL1
PARALEL2 PARALLEL2


GRADAR Procedure

The GRADAR procedure has the following new options and enhancements:

  • The CALENDAR option produces a chart showing twelve equal-sized segments, one for each month of the year.

  • The NLEVELS= option specifies the number of colors to use in calendar charts.

  • The NOLEGEND option turns off the automatically generated legend.

  • The SPOKESCALE= option specifies whether every spoke is drawn to the same scale or each spoke is drawn to a different scale.

  • The WINDROSE option produces a windrose chart, which is a type of histogram.

  • The GRADAR procedure now draws missing overlay values to the center. Previously, missing values were drawn to zero.

  • The FREQ= option now suports only non-zero integers. Zero and negative values are dropped. Decimal values are truncated to integers.

  • The WEIGHT= option is no longer supported.


GREMOVE Procedure

The GREMOVE procedure has the following new options:

  • FUZZ= specifies an error tolerance for the point matching algorithm.

  • NODECYCLE enables some types of polygons to be closed properly.


GTILE Procedure

The new GTILE procedure enables you to create and display tile charts using the Java or ActiveX device drivers. Tile charts are designed for visualizing a large quantity of hierarchical-type data and are sometimes referred to as rectangular tree maps. Tile charts display rectangles of varying sizes and colors based on the magnitude of the variables specified and provides drill-down links to more detailed data.


MAPIMPORT Procedure

The ID statement for the MAPIMPORT procedure enables you to group related polygons.

Global Statements

  • The REPEAT= option on the LEGEND statement allows you to specify the number of times a plot symbol is displayed in a single legend item in the legend.

  • The VALUE=EMPTY option on the PATTERN statement is now supported by three-dimensional bar charts.

  • The STAGGER option offsets the axis values on a horizontal axis.

  • The TICK= suboption on the VALUE= option of the LEGEND statement is now supported by the Java Map Applet.

  • The ROWMAJOR and COLMAJOR options on the LEGEND statement enable you to control whether legend entries are listed by row or by column.

Graphics Options

  • The ACCESSIBLE graphics option generates descriptive text and the summary statistics that are represented by the graph. This option is valid for the Java and ActiveX devices only.

  • The ALTDESC option enables you to specify whether the text specified in the DESCRIPTION= option is used as the data tip text.

  • The TRANSPARENCY option is supported by the ACTIVEX and ACTXIMG drivers when the output is used in a PowerPoint presentation.

Transparent Overlays

Transparent overlays from GIF files are now supported in SAS/GRAPH output. You can use transparent GIFs with the IMAGE function in the Annotate facility and with the IBACK and IFRAME graphics options.

ActiveX Control

The following are enhancements for the ActiveX Control:

  • The ActiveX control now displays calendar and windrose charts generated by the GRADAR procedure.

  • The control also displays tile charts created by the new GTILE procedure.

  • Support for UNICODE fonts has been added.

  • A new field in the user interface enables you to provide interactive graphs in Microsoft Powerpoint slideshows.

  • The user interface now enables you to specify the properties of scroll bars in your graph.

  • Data tips are supported for scatter plots generated with the GCONTOUR procedure.

  • Enhanced support of the Annotate Facility listed under The Annotate Facility.

Java Map Applet

The Java Map Applet user interface enables you to change block sizes.

Support has been added for the MENUREMOVE parameter, which enables you to remove menu items from the applet user interface.

Java Tilechart Applet

The new Java Tile Chart applet creates and displays tile charts. Tile charts are designed for visualizing a large quantity of hierarchical-type data and are sometimes referred to as rectangular tree maps. They display rectangles of varying sizes and colors based on the magnitude of the variables specified and provide drill-down links to more detailed data. You can generate the applet with the GTILE procedure and the JAVA device.

The Annotate Facility

The following new features are available for the Annotate facility:

  • The ANGLE, CBORDER, CBOX, LINE, and ROTATE variables are now supported by the ACTIVEX and ACTXIMG drivers.

  • The ARROW function and %ARROW macro enable you to draw arrows.

  • A new value for the HSYS= option, 'D', specifies points as the unit of measurement for font sizes.

  • The IMAGE function is now supported by the JAVA and JAVAIMG drivers.

  • The WIDTH variable for the PIE function specifies the thickness of the outline around the pie slice.

New Map Data Sets

New map data sets are provided for Antarctica (ANTARCTI, ANTARCT2), Montenegro (MONTENEG, MONTENE2), Romania (ROMANIA, ROMANIA2), Rwanda (RWANDA, RWANDA2), and Serbia (SERBIA, SERBIA2).

The continent map data sets now have corresponding feature data sets (ANTARCT2, AFRICA2,