Tips and Tricks
Often it is desirable to use special Unicode characters for the tick value names on the axes. However, SG procedures and GTL do not support Unicode strings in SAS data sets. With SAS 9.3, the SGPLOT procedure supports annotation which does support Unicode strings. You can create an annotation data set
A commonly requested graph is a bar chart with response and targets. With SAS 9.3, the SGPLOT procedure supports new "parametric" plot statements called HBARPARM and VBARPARM. These statements are special versions of the HBAR and VBAR statements and they expect summarized data for each category or category+group combination. Also,
Often we have the need to see the data by two different classifiers at the same time, as requested by a recent query on the SAS Communities page. In this example I have simulated a response over time for patients by study and treatment. We want to create series plots
In this final post for 2012, I would like to finish up the panel sorting topic with a discussion on sorting the panel cells by statistic. With this sort, the response or dependent data in each cell is calculated down to a single statistic value (mean or median, for example). These values are
Naomi Robbins has posted a contest, part 1 of which is to submit alternative representations for the following graph: Clearly, usage of two pie charts to represent the share of the B2B and B2C referrals will invite many responses. To create the graph, I took the data shown in the Pie Charts themselves, so we are using percent
“So, you work for SAS?” asked my co-passenger. I was on the plane to Baltimore to attend my first NESUG conference and the tag on my laptop bag was the clue. I happened to be seated next to a SAS user who was familiar with ODS Graphics. I ended up
A recent question by a user lead led me to experiment with what is often referred to as conditional highlighting. The user wanted to display a bar chart of response by year, where each bar is colored by year, and show a cross hatch pattern on the bars where the
Last week I attended my first SCSUG conference, this one in Houston. Houston, the fourth most populous city in USA, is the world's capitol of the Oil and Gas industry. So it was no surprise I met many attendees from local oil and gas related companies. But, I also met many
In the previous post on Violin Plots, we discussed the process to create custom density plots. This work was done in collaboration with SAS user James Marcus. This is the second installment on the same topic - Creating Density Strip Plots. We will use the same data and process to compute
Over the past month or more, I have been in a conversation with SAS user James Marcus, on creation of some new displays for visual communication of uncertainty. These include display of densities using a "Violin" plot, "Density Strips" and more. With his permission, I can share some of the
Back in February, I posted an article on creating Adverse Event Timeline Graph. In the SAS 9.2 version (first one), one item that was less than ideal was the way to position the AE names to the left of the event. The AE names are displayed using the scatter plot statement
This SESUG conference was a very energetic and rewarding experience, with many user presentations on graphics using SAS/GRAPH and ODS Graphics. One standout presentation for me was on "Data Merging and Exploration to Identify Associations Between Environmental Factors and Disease Outbreaks" by Neeta Shenvi, et. al. The key part of
The Scatter Plot Matrix statement supports a couple of different configurations. The basic is the N x N panel of cells, with each cell showing scatter plots plot for a pair of variables at a time. Here is an example of a 3 x 3 scatter plot matrix for the
During SAS Global Forum 2012, I had conversations with many SAS users who wanted to create Forest Plots. However, there was one new twist. The study names were subgrouped by categories like 'Age', 'Sex', etc., with multiple entries under each subgroup. The name of each study within the subgrouped was indented
A week ago I had the pleasure of attending MWSUG 2012 in Minneapolis. There were many presentations on Data Visualization in various tracks including the following: Using SAS ODS Graphics - Chuck Kincaid Get the best out of SAS ODS Graphics... - LeRoy Bessler Program Assisted Patient Narratives - Faye
A few weeks ago I wrote an article on using the non breaking space character to prevent stripping of leading and trailing blanks in a string. Since then, I have discovered a few more instances where the nbsp can be a useful tool for creating graphs. One such instance came up last week
Pie charts have been the subject of some criticism when they are used to compare measures across multiple categories. It is generally accepted that comparison of magnitudes represented as angular measures from varying baselines is not effective. However here are some use cases where a pie chart does quite well. When it comes
The Scatter Plot Matrix is a great tool that provides a quick visual of potential associations between variables. This may provide the analyst some hints on how to proceed with the analysis. Matrix of lab values for liver function tests are commonly used in clinical research. The SGSCATTER procedure provides an easy way
Forest plots come in many flavors. An example of a Forest plot using GTL is available on the SAS support web site. Simple forest plots can also be created using SGPLOT procedure by using the SCATTER statement with MARKERCHAR to display data aligned with the plot by study names. One issue
In the Clinical Research domain, there is often the need to display lab values by treatment or test and it is often useful to view this data along with reference lines showing the normal ranges. The obvious way is to use reference lines to denote the normal ranges. SGPLOT Code: proc sgplot data=band; scatter x=x y=y
When comparing results by category and group, putting the items to be compared close together usually leads to a graph that is easier to decode. Take the case of the data (simulated) shown below. Here we have population by age group and sex. To compare the population by sex, it is
A key element of graphs used for analysis of safety data for clinical research is the inclusion of statistical data (or tables) about the study that are aligned with the x axis of the graph. A common example of this comes from the paper "Graphical Approaches to the Analysis of
Spark lines, made popular by Edward Tufte, provide a way to visualize trends in a concise space, often inline with the rest of the narrative or data. Previously, I posted an article on Spark Plots in which I created different plot types, some of which included multiple graphs and data in each row. For such
Statistical graphs often include display of derived statistics along with the raw data. Often these statistics are presented in a tabular format inside the graph. With SGPLOT procedure, a table of statistics can be added to the graph as an inset table, as shown below. Using a Stat Table: SGPLOT code:
ODS Graphics components like GTL and SG procedures are designed to work with Styles to create graphs that are effective in the delivery of information and aesthetically pleasing out of the box. You no longer have to tweak the colors to ensure a nice graph. The graph derives all the
CTSPedia.org is a website of Knowledge Base for Clinical and Translational Research. On this site you can find sample graphs for statistical analysis of safety data for Clinical Research. Graphs included in this resource have been submitted by contributors, and include a graph for Liver Function for different tests by treatment.
A graph in a recent article in Fortune magazine caught my eye. The graph shows the cost of hosting the Summer Olympics over the past eight events. Here is what I termed the "Medal" graph. Now, practitioners of the art of Effective Graphics would likely find some shortcomings in the graph. Clearly
In the previous post on Broken Y-Axis, I reviewed different ways to display data as a Bar Chart, where the response values for some categories are many orders of magnitude larger than the other values. These tall bars force the display of other values to be squeezed down thus making it harder to compare
Often we want to display data as a bar chart where a few observations have large values compared to the rest. Comparison between the smaller values becomes hard as the small bars are squeezed by the tall bars. Here is an example data, and a bar chart showing the data. The large values
Recently, I came across an interesting graph showing Euro contries bank exposuro to GIIPS countries, as percent of GNP. Here is the graph: I thought I would see how far I can get in making a similar graph using SAS. I made up some data with response values for a Product x
