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Working with Chart Axis Scale Breaks

Working with Nevron Chart Scale Breaks – Using Axis Scale Breaks

Introduction

Creating a chart that is informative to the user is a challenging task. Being focused on the data visualization Nevron Chart for .NET sets the standards in data visualization technology by supporting a variety of features allowing you to create informative and readable charts. One such feature is the complete support for axis scale breaks.

Features

Occupational Noise Report

Fig. 1

Axis scale breaks are most commonly used in the following cases:
  • When you have to display data that varies greatly in magnitude.
  • When you need to reduce the effect that several large values (peaks in data) have on the scaling of the rest of data.
  • When you want to skip data that is of no interest in order to focus on the rest of the data.
Nevron Chart fully supports scale breaks on all types of axes (horizontal, vertical, depth, reversed, date time etc.) in both 2D and 3D mode and allows you to have complete control over the scale break position and style.

Occupational Noise Report with Scale Break

Fig. 2

As shown on the above picture (Fig. 1), the noise levels raise dramatically between 10 to 12 o’clock creating a peak in data. The effect is to visually marginalize the other smaller peaks in the sound level, thus reducing the ability of the user of the chart to analyze these smaller peaks. In cases like this one you may consider to introduce a scale break on the y axis in order to increase the chart readability. The following chart (Fig. 2) shows how an automatic scale break will effectively increase the visual space available for the data:

This is achieved through the following code:

[C#]
NAxis primaryY = (NAxis)chart.Axis (StandardAxis.PrimaryY);
NStandardScaleConfigurator noiseScale = primaryY.ScaleConfigurator as NStandardScaleConfigurator;

NAutoScaleBreak autoScaleBreak = new NAutoScaleBreak();
noiseScale.ScaleBreaks.Add (autoScaleBreak);

[VB.NET]
Dim primaryY As NAxis = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryY)
Dim noiseScale As NStandardScaleConfigurator = CType (primaryY.ScaleConfigurator, NStandardScaleConfigurator)

Dim autoScaleBreak As NAutoScaleBreak = New NAutoScaleBreak()
noiseScale.ScaleBreaks.Add (autoScaleBreak)

Occupational Noise Report with Scale Break Position

Fig. 3

Notice that now the smaller peaks in data are now more visible, but the chart still does not look quite good. In particular the scale break filling and style do not match the visual appearance of the chart, therefore it is a nice idea to introduce wave scale break style with some other filling (Fig. 3):

This is done with one line of code:

[C#]
autoScaleBreak.Position = new NContentScaleBreakPosition();

[VB.NET]
autoScaleBreak.Position = New NContentScaleBreakPosition()

Working with Nevron Chart Scale Breaks you can add custom scale breaks on the chart primary X and Y axes in 2D or 3D charts.

Conclusion

Scale breaks appearance
Chart Scale Breaks Gallery

Nevron Chart for .NET fully supports scale breaks and additionally allows you to customize a variety of options to get the desired result for your charts. Very few charting packages support this level of flexibility when working with scale breaks. More information on scale breaks is available in the Users Guide shipped with the fully-functional evaluation of the Chart component.

About Nevron Software

Founded in 1998, Nevron Software is a component vendor specialized in the development of premium presentation layer solutions for .NET based technologies. Today Nevron has established itself as the trusted partner worldwide for use in .NET LOB applications, SharePoint portals and Reporting solutions. Nevron technology is used by many Fortune 500 companies, large financial institutions, global IT consultancies, academic institutions, governments and non-profits.
For more information, visit: www.nevron.com.

Customer Quotes:

QUOTE Nevron's Chart for .NET library provides a very professional and polished look – right out of the box. In areas where the defaults didn't fit our needs, we found a wide variety of tools for customization. Beyond the "good looks", one of our biggest concerns was interactivity with large data sets. Once again, Nevron delivered with fantastic graphical interaction and hardware-based acceleration.

We highly recommend Nevron's Chart for .NET.
UNQUOTE

Mark C. Malburg, Ph.D.
Digital Metrology Solutions, Inc.