Reasonable optimized chart scaling

Question

I need to make a chart with an optimized y axis maximum value.

The current method I have of making charts simply uses the maximum value of all the graphs, then divides it by ten, and uses that as grid lines. I didn't write it.

Update Note: These graphs have been changed. As soon as I fixed the code, my dynamic graphs started working, making this question nonsensical (because the examples no longer had any errors in them). I've updated these with static images, but some of the answers refrence different values. Keep that in mind. There were between 12003 and 14003 inbound calls so far in February. Informative, but ugly.

I'd like to avoid charts that look like a monkey came up with the y-axis numbers.

Using the Google charts API helps a little bit, but it's still not quite what I want. The numbers are clean, but the top of the y value is always the same as the maximum value on the chart. This chart scales from 0 to 1357. I need to have calculated the proper value of 1400, problematically.

---

I'm throwing in rbobby's defanition of a 'nice' number here because it explains it so well.

• A "nice" number is one that has 3 or fewer non-zero digits (eg. 1230000)
• A "nice" number has the same or few non-zero digits than zero digits (eg 1230 is not nice, 1200 is nice)
• The nicest numbers are ones with multiples of 3 zeros (eg. "1,000", "1,000,000")
• The second nicest numbers are onces with multples of 3 zeros plus 2 zeros (eg. "1,500,000", "1,200")

Solution

I found the way to get the results that I want using a modified version of Mark Ransom's idea.

Fist, Mark Ransom's code determines the optimum spacing between ticks, when given the number of ticks. Sometimes this number ends up being more than twice what the highest value on the chart is, depending on how many grid lines you want.

What I'm doing is I'm running Mark's code with 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 grid lines (ticks) to find which of those is the lowest. With a value of 23, the height of the chart goes to 25, with a grid line at 5, 10, 15, 20, and 25. With a value of 26, the chart's height is 30, with grid lines at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 30. It has the same spacing between grid lines, but there are more of them.

So here's the steps to just-about copy what Excel does to make charts all fancy.

1. Temporarily bump up the chart's highest value by about 5% (so that there is always some space between the chart's highest point and the top of the chart area. We want 99.9 to round up to 120)
2. Find the optimum grid line placement for 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10 grid lines.
3. Pick out the lowest of those numbers. Remember the number of grid lines it took to get that value.
4. Now you have the optimum chart height. The lines/bar will never butt up against the top of the chart and you have the optimum number of ticks.

PHP:

function roundUp($maxValue){
    $optiMax = $maxValue * 2;
    for ($i = 5; $i <= 10; $i++){
        $tmpMaxValue = bestTick($maxValue,$i);
        if (($optiMax > $tmpMaxValue) and ($tmpMaxValue > ($maxValue + $maxValue * 0.05))){
            $optiMax = $tmpMaxValue;
            $optiTicks = $i;
        }
    }
    return $optiMax;
}
function bestTick($maxValue, $mostTicks){
    $minimum = $maxValue / $mostTicks;
    $magnitude = pow(10,floor(log($minimum) / log(10)));
    $residual = $minimum / $magnitude;
    if ($residual > 5){
        $tick = 10 * $magnitude;
    } elseif ($residual > 2) {
        $tick = 5 * $magnitude;
    } elseif ($residual > 1){
        $tick = 2 * $magnitude;
    } else {
        $tick = $magnitude;
    }
    return ($tick * $mostTicks);
}

Python:

import math

def BestTick(largest, mostticks):
    minimum = largest / mostticks
    magnitude = 10 ** math.floor(math.log(minimum) / math.log(10))
    residual = minimum / magnitude
    if residual > 5:
        tick = 10 * magnitude
    elif residual > 2:
        tick = 5 * magnitude
    elif residual > 1:
        tick = 2 * magnitude
    else:
        tick = magnitude
    return tick

value = int(input(""))
optMax = value * 2
for i in range(5,11):
    maxValue = BestTick(value,i) * i
    print maxValue
    if (optMax > maxValue) and (maxValue > value  + (value*.05)):
        optMax = maxValue
        optTicks = i
print "\nTest Value: " + str(value + (value * .05)) + "\n\nChart Height: " + str(optMax) + " Ticks: " + str(optTicks)

Answer 1

This is from a previous similar question:

Algorithm for "nice" grid line intervals on a graph

I've done this with kind of a brute force method. First, figure out the maximum number of tick marks you can fit into the space. Divide the total range of values by the number of ticks; this is the minimum spacing of the tick. Now calculate the floor of the logarithm base 10 to get the magnitude of the tick, and divide by this value. You should end up with something in the range of 1 to 10. Simply choose the round number greater than or equal to the value and multiply it by the logarithm calculated earlier. This is your final tick spacing.

Example in Python:

import math

def BestTick(largest, mostticks):
    minimum = largest / mostticks
    magnitude = 10 ** math.floor(math.log(minimum) / math.log(10))
    residual = minimum / magnitude
    if residual > 5:
        tick = 10 * magnitude
    elif residual > 2:
        tick = 5 * magnitude
    elif residual > 1:
        tick = 2 * magnitude
    else:
        tick = magnitude
    return tick

Answer 2

You could round up to two significant figures. The following pseudocode should work:

// maxValue is the largest value in your chart
magnitude = floor(log10(maxValue))
base = 10^(magnitude - 1)
chartHeight = ceiling(maxValue / base) * base

For example, if maxValue is 1357, then magnitude is 3 and base is 100. Dividing by 100, rounding up, and multiplying by 100 has the result of rounding up to the next multiple of 100, i.e. rounding up to two significant figures. In this case, the result if 1400 (1357 ⇒ 13.57 ⇒ 14 ⇒ 1400).

Answer 3

In the past I've done this in a brute force-ish sort of way. Here's a chunk of C++ code that works well... but for a hardcoded lower and upper limits (0 and 5000):

int PickYUnits()
{
    int MinSize[8] = {20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20, 20};
    int ItemsPerUnit[8] = {5, 10, 20, 25, 50, 100, 250, 500};
    int ItemLimits[8] = {20, 50, 100, 250, 500, 1000, 2500, 5000};
    int MaxNumUnits = 8;
    double PixelsPerY;
    int PixelsPerAxis;
    int Units;

    //
    // Figure out the max from the dataset
    //  - Min is always 0 for a bar chart
    //
    m_MinY = 0;
    m_MaxY = -9999999;
    m_TotalY = 0;
    for (int j = 0; j < m_DataPoints.GetSize(); j++) {
        if (m_DataPoints[j].m_y > m_MaxY) {
            m_MaxY = m_DataPoints[j].m_y;
        }

        m_TotalY += m_DataPoints[j].m_y;
    }

    //
    // Give some space at the top
    //
    m_MaxY = m_MaxY + 1;


    //
    // Figure out the size of the range
    //
    double yRange = (m_MaxY - m_MinY);

    //
    // Pick the initial size
    //
    Units = MaxNumUnits;
    for (int k = 0; k < MaxNumUnits; k++)
    {
        if (yRange < ItemLimits[k])
        {
            Units = k;
            break;
        }
    }

    //
    // Adjust it upwards based on the space available
    //
    PixelsPerY = m_rcGraph.Height() / yRange;
    PixelsPerAxis = (int)(PixelsPerY * ItemsPerUnit[Units]);

    while (PixelsPerAxis < MinSize[Units]){
        Units += 1;
        PixelsPerAxis = (int)(PixelsPerY * ItemsPerUnit[Units]);
        if (Units == 5)
            break;
    }


    return ItemsPerUnit[Units];
}

However something in what you've said tweaked me. To pick nice axis numbers a definition of "nice number" would help:

• A "nice" number is one that has 3 or fewer non-zero digits (eg. 1230000)
• A "nice" number has the same or few non-zero digits than zero digits (eg 1230 is not nice, 1200 is nice)
• The nicest numbers are ones with multiples of 3 zeros (eg. "1,000", "1,000,000")
• The second nicest numbers are onces with multples of 3 zeros plus 2 zeros (eg. "1,500,000", "1,200")

Not sure if the above definition is "right" or actually helpful (but with the definition in hand it then becomes a simpler task to devise an algorithm).

Answer 4

A slight refinement and tested... (works for fractions of units and not just integers)

public void testNumbers() {
        double test = 0.20000;

        double multiple = 1;
        int scale = 0;
        String[] prefix = new String[]{"", "m", "u", "n"};
        while (Math.log10(test) < 0) {
            multiple = multiple * 1000;
            test = test * 1000;
            scale++;
        }

        double tick;
        double minimum = test / 10;
        double magnitude = 100000000;
        while (minimum <= magnitude){
            magnitude = magnitude / 10;
        }

        double residual = test / (magnitude * 10);
        if (residual > 5) {
            tick = 10 * magnitude;
        } else if (residual > 2) {
            tick = 5 * magnitude;
        } else if (residual > 1) {
            tick = 2 * magnitude;
        } else {
            tick = magnitude;
        }

        double curAmt = 0;

        int ticks = (int) Math.ceil(test / tick);

        for (int ix = 0; ix < ticks; ix++) {
            curAmt += tick;
            BigDecimal bigDecimal = new BigDecimal(curAmt);
            bigDecimal.setScale(2, BigDecimal.ROUND_HALF_UP);
            System.out.println(bigDecimal.stripTrailingZeros().toPlainString() + prefix[scale] + "s");
        }

        System.out.println("Value = " + test + prefix[scale] + "s");
        System.out.println("Tick = " + tick + prefix[scale] + "s");
        System.out.println("Ticks = " + ticks);
        System.out.println("Scale = " +  multiple + " : " + scale);


    }

Answer 5

If you want 1400 at the top, how about adjusting the last two parameters to 1400 instead of 1357:

Answer 6

You could use div and mod. For example.

Let's say you want your chart to round up by increments of 20 (just to make it more a more arbitrary number than your typical "10" value).

So I would assume that 1, 11, 18 would all round up to 20. But 21, 33, 38 would round to 40.

To come up with the right value do the following:

Where divisor = your rounding increment.

divisor = 20
multiple = maxValue / divisor;  // Do an integer divide here. 
if (maxValue modulus divisor > 0)
   multiple++;

graphMax = multiple * maxValue;

So now let's plugin real numbers:

divisor = 20;
multiple = 33 / 20; (integer divide)
so multiple = 1
if (33 modulus 20 > 0)  (it is.. it equals 13) 
   multiple++;

so multiple = 2;
graphMax = multiple (2) * maxValue (20);
graphMax = 40;