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Graphics

SAS Graphs for ActiveX

The SAS/GRAPH Control for ActiveX is available for Microsoft Windows environments. The control displays interactive graphs that can be used in Web pages and OLE documents (in Microsoft Office products).

Graph Types:

Additional Features:



Areabar Charts (Vertical and Horizontal)

Areabar charts represent the values of multiple response variables by one or more independent variables. The values of one response variable are represented by bar height or length (depending on whether the chart orientation is vertical or horizontal), and the values of the second are represented by bar width. Areabar charts are useful for charting the values of two independent variables.



Areabar Chart
Horizontal Areabar Chart 		Areabar charts for ActiveX allow users to do the following:
  • Display or hide outlines around the bars.
  • Specify a line thickness and color for the outlines when they are displayed.
  • Display or hide data labels for each bar.
  • Specify font characteristics for the labels when they are displayed.

Bar Charts (Vertical and Horizontal)

Bar charts represent a requested statistic based on the values of one or more variables. They are useful for displaying exact magnitudes and emphasizing the differences among the charted values.

Vartical Bar Chart
Vertical Bar Chart
Horizontal Bar Chart
Horizontal Bar Chart 		Bar charts for ActiveX allow users to do the following:
  • Vary the view of the data as follows:
    • Change the variables that are used in the chart and the roles that the variables play.
    • Change the sort order of the data.
    • Change the statistic that is calculated.
  • Change the shape, width, or orientation of the bars. Also, set the bar colors according to the values of a data variable.
  • Display or hide outlines around the bars.
  • Specify a line thickness and color for the outlines when they are displayed.
  • Display or hide data labels for each bar.
  • Specify font characteristics for the labels when they are displayed.

Pie Charts

Pie charts use the size of pie slices to graphically represent the value of a statistic for a data range. Pie charts are useful for examining how the values of a variable contribute to the whole and for comparing the values of several variables.

A pie chart with detailed slices produces an inner pie overlay whose slices show the major components that form the outer pie's slices.

Pie Chart
Pie Chart

Pie Chart with Detailed Slices
Pie Chart with Detailed Slices

Pie charts for ActiveX allow users to do the following:
  • Vary the view of the data as follows:
    • Change the variables that are used in the chart and the roles that the variables play.
    • Change the sort order of the data.
    • Change the statistic that is calculated.
  • Display, hide, or move a pie's value labels, percent labels, or slice labels.
  • Specify font characteristics for the labels when they are displayed.
  • Display or hide outlines around the pie slices.
  • Specify a line thickness and color for the outlines when they are displayed.
  • Specify a donut style for the pie chart. The donut style displays a hole in the center of the pie.

Line, Area, Scatter, and Bubble Plots

Simple line plots show the relationship of one variable to another, often as movements or trends in the data over a period of time. Typically, each variable value on the horizontal axis has only one corresponding value on the vertical axis.

Area plots are line plots that emphasize trends by filling the areas between plot lines with a pattern or color.

Two-dimensional scatter plots show the relationship of one variable to another, often revealing concentrations or trends in the data. Typically, each variable value on the horizontal axis can have any number of corresponding values on the vertical axis .

Bubble plots show the relative magnitude of one variable in relation to two other variables. The values of two variables determine the position of the bubble on the plot, and the value of a third variable determines the size of the bubbles.

Bubble Plot
Bubble Plot
Scatter Plot
Scatter Plot 		Line, Area, Scatter, and Bubble Plots for ActiveX allow users to do the following:
  • Change the variables that are used in the plot and the roles that the variables play
  • Change the shape or color of the plot markers
  • Display or hide data labels for each plot point. Specify font characteristics for the labels when they are displayed
  • For line and scatter plots, connect plot points with an interpolation line, and specify the type of interpolation. Also, specify a style, thickness, and color for the line (when the line color is not determined by the data).

Contour and Surface Plots

Contour plots are two-dimensional plots that show three-dimensional relationships. They use contour lines or patterns to represent levels of magnitude for a contour variable that is plotted on the horizontal and vertical axes.

Surface plots are three-dimensional plots that display the relationship of three variables as a continuous surface. Surface plots examine the three-dimensional shape of data.

Contour Plot
Contour Plot
Surface Plot
Surface Plot 		Contour and Surface Plots for ActiveX allow users to do the following:
  • Change the use of color in the plot or in its axes, legend, or background.
  • Select a style for the plot, choosing between area, block, line, and surface styles.
  • Modify the lighting, image quality, and other visual effects in the plot.
  • Select a viewing perspective for the plot, choosing between a view that makes comparisons easy and a view that enhances the three-dimensional appearance.
  • Depending on the plot style, you can also do the following:
    • Determine whether missing values are used in the plot display.
    • Determine whether outlines are drawn around area contours.
    • Add or delete contour lines in the plot display.

Block, Choropleth, and Prism Maps

Block maps are three-dimensional maps that represent data values as blocks of varying height rising from the middle of the map areas.

Choropleth maps are two-dimensional maps that represent data values by filling map areas with color.

Prism maps are three-dimensional maps in which levels of magnitude of the specified response variables are represented by raised polygons of varying height and color.

Block Map
Prism Map 		Maps for ActiveX allow users to do the following:
  • Explore the map by
    • enabling a pop-up box that displays data values as the mouse moves over the map areas
    • panning, rotating, or zooming the map.
  • Change the use of color in the map areas, or in the legend or the background.
  • Hide the legend, or change its features.
  • Display or hide a background image (when used).

High-low and Box Plots

High-low and box plots show how several values of one variable relate to one value of another variable. Typically, each variable value on the horizontal axis has several corresponding values on the vertical axis.

High-low plots are useful for representing data that fluctuates around the observation criteria (for example, stock market values that fluctuate during each trading day).

Box plots are useful for representing data that can be measured using quantile ranges or standard deviations (for example, research data).

High-Low Plot
High-Low Plot

Box Plot
Box Plot		 High-low and box plots for ActiveX allow users to do the following:
  • Change the variables that are used in the plot and the roles that the variables play.
  • Determine the type of plot that is displayed.
    • High-low plots can show high and low values; high, low, and close values; open, high, low, and close values; or open, high, low, close, and trend values (Japanese Candlestick plots). When only high and low values are displayed, each high-low point can be represented by a whisker (High-Low style) or a box (Box style).
    • Box plots can be displayed with or without whiskers. When whiskers are displayed, the plot can optionally draw tops and bottoms on them (bracket the box).
  • Include or exclude outliers in the plot (box plots only).
  • Join the middle values of the boxes with a line. (The middle value of each box varies according to graph type. For example, it might be a mean value, or a closing value, depending on the graph type.)
  • Hide or display data labels for each box or whisker, and specify font characteristics for the labels when they are displayed.

Radar Charts

Radar charts show the relative frequency of data measures in quality control or market research problems. The chart statistics are displayed along spokes that radiate from the center of the chart. Rather than displaying the spoke lines, the chart can display polygon or carona shapes that connect the points where data values are located on the spokes.

Radar Chart

Radar Chart with Filled Polygons 		Radar charts for ActiveX allow users to do the following:
  • Display or hide outlines joining the spokes.
  • Specify a line thickness and color for the outlines when they are displayed.
  • Display or hide data labels for each spoke.
  • Specify font characteristics for the labels when they are displayed.

Annotations

SAS/GRAPH software enables you to use annotations to overlay text and shapes anywhere on a graph. Beginning with Version 9, the graphs for ActiveX support most of the capabilities of SAS/GRAPH's annotation facility.



Annotated Bar Chart
Annotated Bar Chart

This chart shows two response variables in a bar-line overlay chart that contains scatter point values with associated labels. The plot line, values, and labels are drawn as annotations.
Annotated Map
Annotated Map 		In this graph, a map is annotated with city names as labels. Lines of different sizes and colors associate the cities with a Pie chart.

Graph Styles

The SAS/GRAPH Control for ActiveX supports style definitions that determine visual characteristics of the graph, such as its use of colors, fonts, background, transparency, drop shadows, and more. The styles have names, and the style definitions are applied to a graph by assigning a style name to it. The style name can be assigned by the person who creates the graph, and the assigned style can be changed by the person who views the graph.

The same style definition can be applied to both grapical and non-graphical output from a SAS program, thus coordinating the visual characteristics of output tables and graphs.

The following figure shows the same graph with different styles assigned to it. The style names are above the graphs. (The figure shows just a sampling of the available styles.)

Statistical
Statistical style		 Science
Science style		 Gears
Gears style
Curve
Curve style		 Education
Education style		 Magnify
Magnify style

In the following figure, the left and right halves of the figure show the same table and graph from SAS output. The output on the left has the Gears style applied to it, and the output on the right has the Magnify style applied to it.

Style=Gears Style=Magnify
Same style applied to table and graph

Saving a Graph to an Image File

Any graph that can be rendered in the Control for ActiveX can be saved directly to a PNG image without saving a version for rendering in the control. This generates a high quality image that is able to take advantage of the graph styles that are available for the ActiveX graphs.