topic Re: Is there a way to have a secondary y-axis in graph builder? in Discussions

Is there a way to have a secondary y-axis in graph builder?

charliem — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 14:33:52 GMT

Graph builder is turning out to be a great tool that I'm using more and more lately.

I want to show two things simultaneously on this chart, as shown in the attachment:

1. Trend among means of the data (means taken within subgroups, with grouping variable on the x-axis) - with error bars to aid in interpretation.

2. As a further aid to interpretation, I want to show a histogram of the counts within each group, and for this I use a bar chart as shown in the attachment. But this is of course messing up the scale on my primary variable (the one I'm averaging and showing error bars on).

If I could put the bars on a different scale - like a secondary y-axis - that would eliminate this problem I believe. Is there a way to do that?

Thanks,

Charlie

Re: Is there a way to have a secondary y-axis in graph builder?

rw9 — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 14:58:01 GMT

Well, can't open designer at the moment, but there are xaxis2 and yaxis2 commands available in GTL:

SAS/GRAPH(R) 9.2: Statistical Graphics Procedures Guide, Second Edition

Re: Is there a way to have a secondary y-axis in graph builder?

charliem — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 15:24:02 GMT

Thanks for the link.

I should have mentioned that the way I'm doing this now is that the graph builder is generated from a JSL script. I'd like to release this tool to users soon so it would be best if I can find a solution that is workable through a JSL script.

Will those commands be available to me in JSL scripting, or do I need to do something else for that?

Re: Is there a way to have a secondary y-axis in graph builder?

rw9 — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 17:01:28 GMT

Hi,

Sorry, never used that tech. However if you are able to produce graphs using base SAS in any shape or form then these would be available.

Re: Is there a way to have a secondary y-axis in graph builder?

XanGregg — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 20:10:36 GMT

You can do that in Graph Builder. The feature is not prominent because it's not a data visualization best practice. See Dual Scaled Axes in Graphs: Are they ever the best solution? for a full discussion; the abbreviated reason is that the overlay suggests a correspondence of scales that usually doesn't exist.

If you still want to proceed, place two or more variables in the Y role in Graph Builder. Then right-click on the Y axis and there will be a contextual menu item called Move Right that let's you pick which variable to move to a right Y axis.

Re: Is there a way to have a secondary y-axis in graph builder?

charliem — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 20:23:53 GMT

It sounds like that shoudl be a solution if I were talking about two different y variables. I was able to do that I can see what you mean about this not being a best practice for data visualization.

But what I'm trying to do is to show two different aspects of the same y variable. What I am trying to show is the trend in the data with error bars using Mean(points) and standard error for the error bar. Then I want to indicate along the bottom of the x-axis is the count (i.e., N) for that same variable. The chart shows the count within each subgroup bin just as I want it to, but it seems that I cannot make this move to the second axis, since it is not a diifferent variable per se, and thus has a different behavior.

Thanks,

Charlie

Re: Is there a way to have a secondary y-axis in graph builder?

XanGregg — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 20:45:31 GMT

You can add the same variable twice to a role, and then move one instance to the right if that helps.

Re: Is there a way to have a secondary y-axis in graph builder?

charliem — Tue, 08 Apr 2014 21:09:20 GMT

That worked perfectly - thanks very much !