Introducing SAS/GRAPH Output for the Web

Types of Web Presentations Available

Delivering information via the web frequently requires a web presentation that includes not only tables but graphics as well. SAS/GRAPH provides three basic ways to display presentations that include graphics. Presentations can be displayed

by an ActiveX control: The ActiveX control displays the output of SAS/GRAPH procedures. It enables such features as pop-up data tips, drill-down links, and interactive menus. For more information, see Presentations That Use The ActiveX Control.
by a Java applet: Java applets display the output of SAS/GRAPH procedures and macros. Depending on the applet, it may enable such features as data tips, drill-down links, or interactive features available through a pop-up menu. For more information, see Presentations That Use Java Applets.
as a static graph: You can also generate graphs that do not have any interactive features but do have interactive capabilities such as data tips or drill-down links. Static graphs can be generated as GIF, JPEG, or PNG files. For more information, see Presentations that Use Static Images.

For additional information about SAS/GRAPH output for the Web, including samples, refer to

http://support.sas.com/rnd/datavisualization

Presentations That Use The ActiveX Control

The SAS/GRAPH ActiveX control displays the output of SAS/GRAPH procedures and enables extensive interactive features via a pop-up menu. The pop-up menus enable you to rotate, and zoom, and to control the properties of graphs such as its colors, legends, and axes.

You can enable pop-up data tips and drill-down links with presentations created for the ActiveX control.

Sample ActiveX Presentation shows output from the GCHART procedure as displayed by the ActiveX control. (You can open the pop-up menu for the ActiveX control by positioning your cursor over the graph and pressing the right mouse button.)

Sample ActiveX Presentation

[Sample output with DEVICE=ActiveX]

The ActiveX control can be viewed only in Windows operating environments with Microsoft Internet Explorer on a PC with the ActiveX control installed.

The ActiveX control displays output from the G3D, GAREABAR, GBARLINE, GCHART, GCONTOUR, GMAP, GPLOT, GRADAR, and GTILE procedures.

To create a graph to be displayed by ActiveX, specify DEVICE=ACTIVEX on your GOPTIONS statement. See Using ODS HTML with a SAS/GRAPH Procedure and Creating Interactive Output for ActiveX for more information.

Presentations That Use Java Applets

If you want to deliver your presentation to more operating environments than just Windows, you can use one of the following Java applets:

Graph, Map, Tilechart, and Contour applets: These applets display the output of SAS/GRAPH procedures and offer many interactive features. The Graph and Map applets.
Treeview and Constellation applets: These applets generate hierarchical treeview diagrams and constellation diagrams, respectively, and are generated with the DS2TREE and DS2CONST macros.
Metaview applet: The Metaview applet displays the output of SAS/GRAPH procedures, and it enables pop-up data tips, drill-down links, and zooming.

Graph, Map, Tilechart, and Contour Applets

Like the ActiveX control, the Graph, Map, Tilechart, and Contour applets display the output of SAS/GRAPH procedures and enable extensive interactive features. The Graph, Map, Tilechart, and Contour applets enable interactive features such as data tips and drill-down links, and they provide pop-up menus which enable the user to change properties such as the graph's colors, legends, and axes.

Sample Java Presentation shows PROC GCHART output displayed by the Java Graph applet with a Properties dialog box. You can open the pop-up menu for these applets by positioning your cursor over the graph and pressing the right mouse button.

Sample Java Presentation

[Sample ACTIVEX Image]

These applets display the output of the following SAS/GRAPH procedures:

Graph Applet	G3D Scatter Plots, GCHART, GPLOT
Contour Applet	G3D Surface Plots, GCONTOUR
Map Applet	GMAP
Tilechart Applet	GTILE

To create a graph to be displayed by one of these applets, specify DEVICE=JAVA on your GOPTIONS statement. For more information, see Using ODS HTML with a SAS/GRAPH Procedure and Creating Interactive Output for Java.

Treeview Applet

This applet displays a treeview diagram, which shows the parent-child relationships in a tree structure. In a treeview diagram, each child node has exactly one parent, and each parent node has zero or more children. In other words, the relationships in a treeview diagram are one-to-many. A treeview diagram is ideal for displaying such data as organizational charts or the hierarchical relationships of the pages of a Web site.

By default, the Treeview applet zooms in on the portion of the tree that is in the center of the display, as if you were looking through a fish-eye lens. Nodes in the center of the display are spread apart and shown with more detail, including node labels. Nodes near the periphery of the display are compressed and shown with less detail. Initially, the Treeview applet places the root node in the center of the display. You can click and drag the diagram to change the portion of the diagram that is in the center of the display.

The Treeview applet supports a pop-up menu that enables you to search for nodes, select or hide subtrees, and so on. You can add hotspots that link to Web pages when the user clicks on a node.

For example, Sample Treeview Diagram shows a treeview diagram (with the pop-up menu opened) displaying the structure of an XML Document Type Definition.

To generate a treeview diagram, use the DS2TREE macro. For more information, see Creating Interactive Treeview Diagrams.

Sample Treeview Diagram

[Sample Treeview diagram]

Constellation Applet

The Constellation applet displays a general node-link diagram. Each node can be linked to one or more other nodes. Unlike the Treeview applet, the Constellation applet does not require a hierarchical relationship between the nodes. (Although it can be used to display hierarchical relationships, the Constellation applet does not automatically place the root node at the center of the display.)

The Constellation applet supports node and link properties, which determine the color and size of the nodes and the color and thickness of the link joining the nodes. These properties indicate the relative strength of the relationship between the nodes.

Like the Treeview applet, by default, the Constellation applet zooms in on the portion of the diagram that is in the center of the display, as if you were looking through a fish-eye lens. Nodes in the center of the display are spread apart and shown with more detail, including node labels. Nodes near the periphery of the display are compressed and shown with less detail. You can click and drag the diagram to change the portion of the diagram that is in the center of the display.

The Constellation applet has a pop-up menu that supports several functions such as highlighting specific links and searching for specific nodes. You can add hotspots that link to Web pages when the user clicks on a node.

Sample Constellation Diagram shows a constellation diagram (with the Mouse Help menu displayed).

To generate the Constellation applet, use the DS2CONST macro. For more information, see Creating Interactive Constellation Diagrams.

Sample Constellation Diagram

[Sample constellation chart]

Metaview Applet

The Metaview applet displays the output of SAS/GRAPH procedures and enables interactive features that are not available with static images such as GIFs or JPEGs. It enables zooming and scrolling and supports pop-up menus with customized user-selectable links. When you generate a graph with the Metaview applet, you can specify background colors and text fonts, and enable drill-down links to HTML files, metagraphics files, and sets of metacodes.

Sample Metaview Applet shows the zoom control that the Metaview applet provides.

Sample Metaview Applet

[Sample Metaview Applet]

The Metaview applet displays output from the G3D, GANNO, GBARLINE, GCHART, GCONTOUR, GPLOT, GMAP, GRADAR, GREPLAY, and GSLIDE procedures. To create a graph to be displayed by the Metaview applet, specify DEVICE=JAVAMETA on your GOPTIONS statement.

For additional information, see Generating Interactive Metagraphics Output.

Presentations that Use Static Images

If you do not need any interactive features in your presentations, then you can specify one of the following device drivers to generate a presentation that uses a GIF, JPEG, or PNG file.

ACTXIMG or JAVAIMG: create a web presentation that uses a static PNG image instead of an interactive applet. The images are identical to the images generated with the ACTIVEX and JAVA device drivers.
GIF, JPEG, or PNG: create web presentations that use static GIF, JPEG, or PNG images.
GIFANIM: generates a series of images that are displayed in sequence from a single GIF file.

To generate a web presentation that uses one of these drivers, specify the driver name with the DEVICE= option in your GOPTIONS statement. All of these device drivers generate output from SAS/GRAPH procedures.

For more information, refer to the following topics:

ACTXIMG Presentations

You can use the ACTXIMG device driver to create a presentation that uses a PNG file that is identical in appearance to the image produced with the ACTIVEX device driver.

A presentation generated with the ACTXIMG driver supports data tips and drill-down links for GCHART, GBARLINE, and GPLOT (except for high-low plots) output.

To render your output (create the PNG file), the ActiveX control must be installed on the PC where your SAS session is running. Because of this requirement, ACTXIMG presentations can be generated only on PCs. When you specify the ACTXIMG device driver, the output is rendered when your web presentation is generated, and the user does not need to have the ActiveX control installed to view it.

Note: The ACTXIMG device cannot be used with the ODS PDF, PCL, PS, or PRINTER destinations on 64-bit machines. SAS uses the JAVAIMG device instead. [cautionend]

You can use the ACTXIMG device driver to generate presentations with the same procedures that are supported by the ACTIVEX driver: G3D, GAREABAR, GBARLINE, GCHART, GCONTOUR, GPLOT, GMAP, GRADAR, and GTILE.

JAVAIMG Presentations

You can use the JAVAIMG device driver to create a presentation that uses a PNG file that is identical in appearance to the image produced with the JAVA device driver.

The appropriate Java applet (Graph, Map, Tilechart, or Contour applet) is required to render your output (create the PNG file). The appropriate Java applet must be installed on the machine where your SAS session is running. When you specify the JAVAIMG device driver, the output is rendered when your web presentation is generated, and the user does not need to have any Java applet files installed to view it.

You can use the JAVAIMG device driver to generate presentations with the same procedures that are supported by the JAVA driver: G3D, GCHART, GCONTOUR, GPLOT, and GTILE.

GIF, JPEG, and PNG Presentations

For Web presentations generated with the GIF, JPEG, or PNG device drivers, you can add pop-up data tips that are displayed when the cursor is over a portion of the image and links to other Web pages.

You can use the GIF, JPEG, or PNG device drivers to generate presentations to display output from the G3D, GANNO, GBARLINE, GCHART, GCONTOUR, GPLOT, GMAP, GRADAR, GREPLAY, and GSLIDE procedures.

To create a web presentation with one of these devices, specify DEVICE=GIF, JPEG, or PNG in your GOPTIONS statement.

Animated GIF Presentations

An animated presentation is a series of static images that are displayed automatically one after the other. Specify DEVICE=GIFANIM in your GOPTIONS statement to generate a web presentation that displays a series of images from a single GIF file. You can control the rate at which the successive images are presented.

You can generate animated GIF presentations from the G3D, GANNO, GBARLINE, GCHART, GCONTOUR, GPLOT, GMAP, GRADAR, GREPLAY, and GSLIDE procedures.

For more information, see Generating Web Animation with GIFANIM.

Top of Page