The QtiPlot Handbook
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# Plot Details

This dialog is activated by selecting the command Plot... from the Format Menu. It is also activated by a double click on the plot. If there are more than one layer in the window, QtiPlot will select the layer which contain the plot under the mouse pointer.

Figure 5-20. The Plot Details Dialog: Layer properties.

The second tab defines the geometry of the plot layer.

Figure 5-21. The Plot Details Dialog: Layer geometry.

The third tab can be used to customize the speed mode for the layer. This can be very usefull when dealing with very large data sets. The speed mode uses the Douglas and Peucker algorithm which purpose is that given a 'curve' composed of line segments to find a curve not too dissimilar but that has fewer points. The algorithm defines 'too dissimilar' based on the maximum distance (tolerance) between the original curve and the smoothed curve. The smoothed curve consists of a subset of the points that defined the original curve. If the speed mode is enabled, the filtering of the data points is activated only for the curves with more than the maximum specified number of points.

Figure 5-22. The Plot Details Dialog: Layer Speed Mode.

The right part of the dialog box contains several tabs which depend on the kind of plot that you are using, they are described in the following subsections. The left part of the dialog window shows the curves which are plotted in the active layer. All the modifications will be done on the selected curve. You can change the columns which are used by clicking on the Plot Associations... button. This will open a dialog which can be used to select the columns of the table which are used as X and Y values.

Figure 5-23. The Plot Details Dialog: Plot Associations.

The button Worksheet can be used to access to the table which contains the columns selected.

## Custom curves for lines and scatter plots

The first tab of the right part of the dialog window allows to define the pair of axes to which the curve is attached. You can thus represent different curves having different x/y scales on the same plot layer.

Figure 5-24. The Plot Details Dialog: assign axes.

The second tab of the right part of the dialog window allows to modify the style of the line (color, line style, thickness). The connect button allows to change the style which is used to draw the selected curve (steps, droplines, etc). See the Plot menu to see the different types of plot available.

Figure 5-25. The Plot Details Dialog: Line formatting.

A third tab can be activated to select the symbol, and to modify the size, the color and the filling color of the symbols.

Figure 5-26. The Plot Details Dialog: Symbol formatting.

The Labels tab can be used to define labels to be plotted for each data point in the plot and to modify the font, the color, the rotation angle and the position of the labels.

Figure 5-27. The Plot Details Dialog: Labels formatting.

## Custom error bars

Figure 5-28. The Plot Details Dialog for error bars formatting.

## Plot Details for pie plots

These commands are available for pie plots. The first tab allows the customization of the pie segments. The left fields are used to modify the border which is drawn round each segment: color, type and width of line. The default is no border (line width = 0).

The right fields are used to define the filling of the plots. The color button defines the one used for the first segment, then the others segments will have colors which follow the order defined in the list. The default value for this field is black, so segment 2, 3, etc will be red, green, etc.

The pattern will be used for all segments of the pie, the default value is solid filling.

Figure 5-29. The Plot Details Dialog for pies: pie segment formatting.

Figure 5-30. The Plot Details Dialog for pies: pie geometry.

Figure 5-31. The Plot Details Dialog for pies: pie labels formatting.

## Custom curves for box plots

Figure 5-32. The Plot Details Dialog for box: pattern formatting.

Figure 5-33. The Plot Details Dialog for box: whiskers formatting.

Figure 5-34. The Plot Details Dialog for box: percentile formatting.

## Custom curves for pie histogram

Figure 5-35. The Plot Details Dialog for histogram: pattern formatting.

Figure 5-36. The Plot Details Dialog for histogram: spacing formatting.

Figure 5-37. The Plot Details Dialog for histogram: data formatting.

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