ODS Graphics uses Java
technology to produce its graphs. Most of the time this fact is transparent
to you because the required Java Runtime Environment (JRE) and Jar
files are included with SAS software installation. Also, the Java
environment is automatically started and stopped for you. When Java
is started, it allocates a fixed amount of memory. The memory can
grow up to the value set for the -Xmx suboption in the JREOPTIONS
option (discussed in a moment). This memory is independent of the
memory limit that SAS sets for the SAS session with its MEMSIZE= option.
Normally, the memory
limit for Java is sufficient for most ODS Graphics applications. However,
some tasks are very memory intensive and might exhaust all available
Java memory, resulting in an OutOfMemoryError condition. You might
encounter Java memory limitations when
-
the product of the output size
and the DPI setting results in very large output
-
a classification panel has a very
large number of classifier crossings
-
a scatter plot matrix has a large
number of variables
-
creating 3-D plots and 2-D contours,
which are memory intensive to generate
-
a plot has a very large number
of marker labels
-
a plot uses many character variables
or has a large number of GROUP values
-
using the SG Editor to edit a graph
with a large amount of data.