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Overview
Graphics facilities in STATISTICA combine an extremely
wide selection of scientific and technical charts (featuring
built-in analytic facilities) with customization, drawing, and
multigraphics management capabilities that are usually found only in
designated presentation graphics and drawing programs. STATISTICA
offers hundreds of types of 2- and 3-dimensional graphical displays,
including 2- and 3-dimensional ternary graphs, special 4-dimensional
graphs, multidimensional graphs, categorized multigraphs, matrices
of graphs, icons, tessellations, spectral 2- and 3-dimensional
graphs, compound graphs, and many other specialized procedures.
Also, flexible and very easy to use facilities are provided to
custom design completely new types of graphs and add them
permanently to the menu or floating toolbars.
There are various methods to request STATISTICA Graphs.
You could say that these methods represent different types of
"interfaces" between numbers and graphs.
For example, the numbers represented in a pie chart can simply
depict values of a spreadsheet column (e.g., variable Sales) in the
consecutive cases of the spreadsheet (e.g., cases labeled: Year
2002, Year 2003, Year 2004, ..., etc.). The numbers in a similar pie
chart, however, can also represent results of some calculations. For
example, the slices of the pie can represent relative frequencies of
observations that belong to certain categories calculated by one of
the histogram or frequency categorization procedures (e.g., numbers
of years when the Sales were below $10 million, between $10 and $20
million, and above $20 million).
Regardless of the method that was used to create a graph (i.e.,
regardless of where the numbers represented in the graph were
obtained or how they were calculated), all STATISTICA Graph
customization and multigraphics management facilities can be used to
change the appearance of the graph or integrate it with other graphs
or documents.
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Also, all integrated analytic facilities that are
accessible from within graphs in STATISTICA (such as
function fitting, smoothing, rotation, brushing, analytical
zooming, etc.) are available and can be applied to the graph
regardless of the source of the numbers in the graph or the
method that was used to create it.
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The graph editing facilities offered in STATISTICA
allow you to create not only highly customized scientific
and technical publication-ready displays:
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and precise drawings:
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but also presentation-quality diagrams, posters, business
charts, and other displays:
that are designed to communicate information in an effective
and attractive manner.
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Graphs that are saved into files or that in any other way have
been temporarily detached from the STATISTICA application
(e.g., copied to the Clipboard or linked to a document in another
application) are complete "objects" (technically speaking,
ActiveX
objects) that contain not only all customization features and other
embedded objects, but also all data that are necessary to continue
editing all aspects of the display or the analysis of its contents
(fitting, smoothing, etc.).
Because STATISTICA Graphs are ActiveX
objects, they can easily be linked to or embedded into other
compatible documents (e.g., Excel or Word documents), where they can
be in-place edited by double-clicking on them. STATISTICA
Graphs are also ActiveX containers and, therefore, can contain a
wide variety of embedded or linked documents such as Visio drawings,
Adobe illustrations, Excel spreadsheets, or Word documents.
Moreover, STATISTICA supports hierarchies of embedded objects
up to four levels, which means that it can manage "documents,
containing documents, containing documents, which contain
documents."
General Types of Graphs vs. Graphs Integrated with Statistical
Procedures
This section describes the general types of graphs that are
available at any point of your analysis and which can be applied to
arbitrary selections of data, including:
- raw data (or any subsets of raw data, specified on-line using
flexible selection conditions);
- any output from analyses (or any subsets of the output
selected in the results Spreadsheets);
- values calculated in STATISTICA Visual Basic;
- any combinations of the previous three types of data.
Note
that one of the unique features of the graphics facilities in STATISTICA
is that all numerical values (and their text descriptions) as well
as all possible combinations of those values can be visualized using
all graphical procedures available in the system.
In addition to those general types of graphs (described in this
section), there are hundreds of more specialized graphs which are
integrated with specific statistical procedures and available either
from the respective output selection dialogs or shortcut menus in
the results Spreadsheets. Some of those specialized types of graphs
are listed in the respective topics of the Statistics section.
Finally, all graphics options and procedures can also be used in
your STATISTICA Visual Basic programs.
General Graphics Options
The selection of types, styles, and options of graphs that can be
produced by STATISTICA exceeds by far the limits of what
would be reasonable to describe in detail in this overview of
features. There are hundreds of predefined and specifically
pre-configured graphs that are accessible from all statistics-,
graphics-, and shortcut menus (and from the toolbars). In addition,
there are virtually countless graphs that can be custom-defined by
the user and those graphs may represent any combinations of
user-selected parts of the numeric output and raw data.
Moreover, each existing graph (either predefined or
custom-defined) can be treated as a starting point for unlimited
customizations which may also involve changing of graph types. These
customizations can go far beyond the interactive changing of
attributes of all graph components and drawings. New series of data
can be added or merged into an existing graph and practically all
structural aspects of the graph can be redefined and customized, and
new STATISTICA graphs (and/or artwork from other
applications) can be dynamically linked to (or statically embedded
into) the current display. Foreign files can simply be dragged onto STATISTICA
graphs directly from the Windows Explorer (across application
windows). STATISTICA graphs may serve as
"containers" for ActiveX/OLE
compliant or incompatible objects pasted from other applications.
Graph ("self-contained") Documents
![[STATISTICA Screenshot]](http://statsoft.com/V6graphics/Graphics/GR4.gif) STATISTICA
graph documents contain all options, features, styles, information
about the inserted, linked or embedded objects, as well as all the
relevant data, and therefore, they can be shared between users even
if they are separated from their original datasets. Moreover, you
can re-open a graph document at a different time and on a different
computer continue to analyze or customize the graph, e.g., change
fitting options, categorization settings, etc.
Dynamic Links Between Graphs and the Input Data
 All
graphs created from the spreadsheet data can automatically maintain
their links to the data. For applications in exploratory data
analysis, a macro system can be defined to have a series of
predefined graphs automatically recreated for each of a series of
datasets; all graphs can be automatically printed, saved, or
directed to a presentation quality report combining graphs with
text.
Graphs Automatically Updated in Real-Time
If the spreadsheet is linked to an outside data source, graphs
can be set to update automatically whenever the spreadsheet links
are updated (e.g., from a remote data warehouse or set different databases
as defined using STATISTICA
Query). For example, quality control graphs (see the
illustration) or other types of graphs can be used for real-time
monitoring of specific quality indices or to control the progress of
a laboratory process. STATISTICA is compatible with
virtually every data acquisition system, and the data can be
transferred to STATISTICA either via a variety of links to
the spreadsheet (that can be updated in the background) or macro
emulated keyboard input. If the spreadsheet contains formulas to
transform or "clean" the input data, the respective parts
of the spreadsheet can be set to automatically recalculate whenever
new data are received and then the transformed data will be sent to
the chart. Also, those types of systems of practically unlimited
complexity can be custom defined in STATISTICA Visual
Basic.
Selection of Graphs
 Optimized
access to graph type selections. The list of all types of
graphs supported is long (see below); however,
access to all types of graphs in STATISTICA is designed to
minimize potential confusion among the number of choices, and to
guide you in the process of selecting graph types. All choices can
be made from menus, toolbars, or a convenient Graphs Gallery
facility (designed to simplify access to the many types of graphs,
and integrated with the Electronic Manual) or simple hierarchical
menus; custom macros can also be used. See also the next topic on
shortcuts.
 Quick
access to common types of graphs, shortcuts. The most
commonly used types of graphs are available via quick
"single-click" facilities (e.g., Quick Stats Graphs [see
the illustration at left] or basic selections of Block Graphs)
accessible from shortcut menus or the top sections of other menus
and designed to reduce the number of necessary selections to the
very minimum. For example, these quick access facilities will skip
all option dialogs, apply dynamically determined system defaults for
all settings, and if a block of values is highlighted in the current
spreadsheet or Spreadsheet, will even suggest the selection of
variables from the block. Other alternative ways of accessing
general types of graphs are also supported; for example, you can
assign the most commonly used types of customized (or
custom-designed) graphs to buttons on existing or custom defined
toolbars, hot keys, or append them to a pull-down menus.
 A
review of main types of graphs. The selection of types
and sub-types of graphs that can be produced by STATISTICA
exceeds the limits of what would be reasonable to describe in detail
in this overview. This section includes only a summary overview of
the main types of graphs.
 In
addition to the large selection of styles of "business
type" (Microsoft PowerPoint or Excel-style) 2- and
3-dimensional graphs (such as bar, column, pie, line, area, stacked,
stock market style High-Low-Close, range, deviation, block, etc.), STATISTICA
offers a wide variety of statistical (analytic and exploratory)
graphs. These include histograms (including smoothed, cumulative,
multiple, double-Y, fitted, hanging histobars, one- and two-way
categorized multi-histograms, matrix histograms, 3D bivariate
distribution histograms and surface smoothed histograms, histograms
coordinated with scatterplots, histograms coordinated with sequence,
moving average, etc. graphs, and many others), means plots with
error bars, box plots, range plots, box-and-whisker plots (including
user-defined plots of central tendencies [such as trimmed means or
medians] and measures of dispersion [user-specified percentiles,
ranges, SD's, SE's, or non-outlier ranges], plots of outliers and
extreme values, box plots with outliers coordinated with
scatterplots, as well as 2D, 3D, and categorized plots of ranges or
variation in multiple series or groups of data, and many others),
scatterplots (including multiple, double-Y, frequency, marked,
point-labeled, weighted, Voronoi, one- and two-way categorized
multi-scatterplots, scatterplot matrices, XYZ scatterplots, ternary
scatterplots, Polar scatterplots, multiple-subset scatterplots where
each subset of data is specified by custom-defined selection
conditions, compound scatterplots with coordinated histograms or box
and whisker plots, scatterplots of quantiles for comparing
distributions, and many others, including such specialized types as
scatterplots where every data point is represented by a custom
graphics file (BMP, WMF, JPG, PNG) or icon-scatterplots where data
points are marked by multidimensional icons visualizing relations
between additional variables, e.g., small pie charts or Chernoff
faces), line plots (including multiple, aggregated, marked,
case/profile plots with range lines, double-Y, 3D, ribbon, and many
others), a wide variety of 2D and 3D function fitting and function
plotting graphs, and distribution fitting graphs (including flexible
implementations of categorized and regular Quantile-Quantile and
Probability-Probability plots, for a wide variety of distributions);
categorized and regular Missing/Out of range graphs mapping
distributions of missing data (or values from user-defined ranges)
across datasets or their subsets defined by categorizations; icon
plots (including flexible implementations of Chernoff faces, star,
sun ray, polygon, pie, column, line and profile icons), matrix plots
(including square and rectangular scatter, line, and column
matrices, and multiple-subset matrices), 2D and 3D
triangular-coordinate (ternary) graphs (including scatterplots,
contours [projected and 2D], surfaces [with a selection of ternary
fitting options], ternary space and deviation graphs, as well as
categorized [multiple] 2D and 3D ternary plot-displays of all
supported types); one and two-way categorized multiplots (that allow
you to generate flexible "crosstabulations" of multiple
scatterplots, histograms, line graphs, function fitting graphs,
box-and-whisker graphs, pie charts, various bar, column, range,
deviation, tessellation and other specialized plots and their
combinations, including a wide selection of multiple [i.e.,
"categorized by..."] 3D graphs); a wide selection of 3D
graphs, including various XYZ scatterplots, space plots, spectral
plots, deviation plots, ribbon plots, block plots, box plots, 3D
range plots and multiple range plots (including flying boxes, flying
blocks and broken blocks, flying double-ribbon ranges, flying
border, point, and error bar ranges); various user-defined surface
plots with projected contours, line plots, trace plots, contour
plots, function plots, 3D pie charts, and others); special
multiple-3D (4D) graphs, and many others. 3D displays feature
on-screen rotation, control over all proportions of the respective
solids, perspective, etc. This also includes the 4D graphs (e.g.,
multiple surface plots can be rotated simultaneously on the screen
in user-controlled perspective).
User-Defined Graphs
 All
graph definition and customization facilities in STATISTICA
can be used to define new types of graphs, which can later be
permanently added to the floating toolbars or appended to the menu.
There are several ways in which new graphs can be defined.
 The
simplest method to custom-define a new graph (to be used repeatedly)
is to create it as usual, using any options from the respective
graph definition dialogs, and then press the Add as a User-defined
Graph to Menu button. STATISTICA will then ask you for the
name (and optionally, if the selection of variables is to be
preserved), and the new graph name will "jump" into the
menu.
An alternative method to custom-define a new graph (for repeated
use) is to create a macro (either by recording it or writing a
program using the STATISTICA Visual Basic editor). The new
macro can then be assigned to a button on a toolbar, menu option,
and/or a hot key.
 Finally,
STATISTICA Visual Basic offers comprehensive access to all
graphics procedures of STATISTICA. Creating even complex
graphs with STATISTICA Visual Basic is surprisingly easy.
For example, you can start by recording a respective macro by
creating a graph interactively and then customize the code. A
Function Browser is provided to speed up entry of the graphics
functions. Graphs of any degree of complexity can be custom defined
in the STATISTICA Visual Basic and assigned to buttons,
menu options, and/or hot keys for repeated use. The applications are
virtually countless and range from simple line graphs (e.g., created
for every case in a data file and overlaid in one display) to new,
complex types of specialized graphs, technical drawings, and
diagrams related to datasets. Completely new graphics structures can
be created using the drawing tools (graphics primitives). The STATISTICA
Visual Basic can also be used to automate routine sets of
modifications or customizations of existing graphs (e.g., you can
design a library of your own menu-driven graph customization
procedures). STATISTICA Visual Basic can create complex
compound graphics documents with ActiveX/OLE links (including nested
documents), diagrams related to data (that can be updated/redrawn by
pressing a button), and many other types of displays. The graphics
output can be directed to all output channels, windows, workbooks,
reports; they can be automatically printed, saved, or combined with
output from other applications (e.g., output into a Word document or
an Excel spreadsheet. Your new, custom-designed graphics procedures
can be permanently added to the STATISTICA system by
assigning them to any controls. Simple to use, predefined dialogs
can be set up (with the intuitive, interactive dialog painter) to
produce customized "front ends" for these new procedures
(e.g., prompting the user to enter the necessary parameters, text of
titles, select specific options, or any other type of input).
Flexibility of Graphical Representations of Data: An Example
 One
of the unique features of STATISTICA is its facilities to
flexibly experiment with different graphical representations of the
same set and arrangement of data. After the selected graphical
representation of a dataset appears on the screen (e.g., a 3D
scatterplot), the type of graphical representation and the layout
style can be flexibly adjusted to achieve the desired analytic or
presentation effects.
For example, after a 3D scatterplot is produced, you can
interactively convert it into a space plot (showing deviations of
individual data points from a fixed plane), "compress" the
data points into a user-requested number of spectral planes, fit a
surface to the data points (choosing from a variety of surface types
and display styles, stiffness of the fit, etc.), compare the fit of
data to surfaces produced from custom-defined functions, experiment
with re-fitting the surface after interactively removing and
restoring outliers (with a 3D slicer or a cube brush), perform
on-screen rotation and adjust the perspective of the graph, zoom on
specific concentrations of data (e.g., scroll in logical zoom mode
to create an effect of moving a "strong magnifying glass"
over the graph to explore specific areas), interactively identify
specific points, by labeling them with one of the many brushing
methods supported, etc.
Graphical Data Analysis
 STATISTICA
features a comprehensive selection of tools for graphical data
exploration and analysis, and an extensive set of facilities to
identify relations, trends, and biases "hidden" in
unstructured datasets. The analytic techniques include function
fitting and plotting, data smoothing, overlaying and merging of
multiple displays, interactive categorizing of data,
splitting/merging subsets of data in graphs, aggregating data in
graphs, identifying and marking subsets of data that meet specific
conditions, shading, plotting confidence intervals and confidence
areas (ellipses), generating tessellations, layered compressions,
spectral planes, and projected contours, data image reduction
techniques, interactive (and continuous) rotation of 3D graphs,
selective highlighting of specific series and blocks of data, a
uniquely powerful and comprehensive selection of brushing
techniques, including a flexible "animated brushing"
facility (see the Brushing topic, below), 3D slicers and
interactive, fully customizable cube brushes), analytic zooming
tools, allowing you to interactively create sub-graphs by selecting
an area (or a cube) on an existing display, and many others.
Fitting, Smoothing, Overlaying
Specialized smoothing and fitting methods related to particular
statistical procedures are available as part of output selections in
the respective statistics modules. However, a comprehensive
selection of general-purpose smoothing and function fitting methods
are available at any point of your analysis as part of the general
graphics options and they include a wide variety of distribution
fitting options (including Beta, Exponential, Extreme Value, Gamma,
Laplace, Lognormal, Lowess, Normal, Poisson, Rayleigh, and Weibull),
as well as standard fitting and smoothing procedures, including
linear, exponential, logarithmic, spline, normal, polynomial (of
user-selectable order), bicubic spline, distance-weighted least
squares smoothing, negative exponentially-weighted smoothing,
ternary linear and quadratic, ternary cubic and special cubic.
User-defined 2- and 3-dimensional functions (as well as sets of
parametric curves - e.g., to draw a circle or an ellipse) can also
be plotted and overlaid on the graphs. The functions may reference a
wide variety of distributions including Beta, Binomial, Cauchy,
Chi-square, Exponential, Extreme Value, F, Gamma, Geometric,
Laplace, Logistic, Lognormal, Normal, Pareto, Poisson, Rectangular,
Rayleigh, Student's t, and Weibull, as well as their integrals and
inverses.
Fitting Arbitrary Functions
Additional facilities to fit user-defined functions of
practically unlimited complexity to the data are described in the
section on Nonlinear
Estimation. The function minimization can be performed using a
selection of powerful fitting algorithms (including
Levenberg-Marquardt, quasi-Newton, Simplex, Hooke-Jeeves pattern
moves, and Rosenbrock pattern search method of rotating coordinates)
and according to the default or user-defined loss functions.
Brushing Techniques
 Overview.
The comprehensive implementation of brushing techniques (for
exploratory data analysis and hypothesis testing) includes a wide
variety of data selection and identification methods as well as
various options to manage the selected data. Due to STATISTICA's
proprietary graphics technology (see the topic on technology,
below), the brushing facilities are extremely responsive even on
large scatterplot matrices showing large datasets. Point, rectangle,
lasso, slice, and cube brushes can be used; brushing is supported
for all categories of graphs (including 2D, 3D, categorized,
scatterplot matrices, and even such specialized displays as graphs
with Polar coordinates or categorized 3D scatterplots with
triangular coordinate systems). Brushing actions supported include
interactive labeling, marking, elimination/suppression, reversing
all operations, and changing the status of individual or globally
selected sets of data points (e.g., depending on combinations of
conditions met by the data points).
 Animated
Brushing. Animated movement of multi-point (area, slice, or
cube) brushes (especially useful in exploration of scatterplot
matrix displays) allows the user to watch the dynamics of relations
between variables in multivariate datasets. For example, a rectangle
brush covering 10% of the range of variable INCOME, can be set to
"flow" over the entire range of INCOME (at a speed
interactively controlled by the user). As the brush
"flows" over the ranges of INCOME, all data points that
belong to the currently covered ("brushed") ranges of
INCOME will automatically "light up" (i.e., get
highlighted) in all scatterplots of the matrix, allowing you, for
example, to inspect the contribution of observations representing
specific levels of INCOME to the relations between all other
variables in the dataset.
 Value
range-based, and attribute-based brushing; managing brushed/selected
data. In addition to the mouse-based methods, flexible
tools are available to interactively brush/select subsets of data by
specifying ranges of values and/or combinations of attributes of
data points. Also, facilities are provided to manage the selected
data points (e.g., selectively copy them to the Clipboard, copy or
move them to a new column/plot, etc.).
The Technology Supporting the Graphics Procedures, Speed (A
Technical Note)
The unique technology behind all graphics procedures in STATISTICA
not only allows for advanced exploration and visualization of data
and facilitates the analyses listed in the previous topics, but it
also contributes to the overall responsiveness of the program. For
example:
- All graph redraws are performed at speeds limited only by the
hardware of the computer and the drivers (see the sections on Speed
and Comparative
Benchmarks).
- STATISTICA uses the multithreading technology for all
graph redrawing operations (thus complex displays are redrawn in
the background while you continue with the next operation).
Custom resolution enhancement procedures are used to minimize
graph distortion, optimize the graph appearance, and increase
the readability of fonts and markers, and the accuracy of the
display.
- In addition, data-image compression and/or display density
filters can be used to increase the readability of graphs based
on large datasets.
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- A "logical" zoom (i.e., a zoom revealing new
details and not merely stretching the display) can be
performed on all relevant graphic displays and options
are provided to create subgraphs from interactively
selected 2D or 3D subsets (or slices) of data.
- The implementation of brushing in STATISTICA
(see brushing) is based on
proprietary graphics and image processing technology
(which is largely responsible for the overall speed of
screen redraws and responsiveness of the program). Even
with moderate to large datasets, all operations are
performed with virtually no noticeable delay. The
proprietary region selection and virtual image
technology allows you to perform interactive brushing
even with extremely large datasets, on large screens
(e.g., 1600 x 1200) with unlimited numbers of colors,
and the brushing can be performed in real zoom. The
proprietary region selection procedures supporting
regions of unlimited size allow these procedures to
break the system region size limitation even on the
older versions of Windows.
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- When the zoom-out or reducing the window size
operations make the fonts on the graph too small to
read, a unique toolbar tool is provided to globally and
proportionately adjust the display sizes of all graph
fonts and other components set in an independent metric
(e.g., point marker size) for increased readability or
presentation effects (see the illustration at left). The
same options are also supported for compound documents.
- Cross-sections of 3D graphs can be interactively
reviewed "slice by slice" with a unique
brushing slicer.
- By default, all graph windows are resized while
automatically maintaining the graph aspect ratio (as in
CAD programs). The user has full control over the graph
mapping options, including the mapping base,
proportions, margins, graph aspect ratio, translation of
logical sizes of graph components as set in points (one
quarter of a point is 1/288 of an inch) into physical
sizes as they appear on displays, printouts, or in graph
regions when the graphs are created in the STATISTICA
report editor or pasted into documents in other
applications.
- The ActiveX/OLE suport include simultaneous support
for server and client mode; compound embedded objects
(up to fourth level) are supported (see the illustration
at left); proprietary technology is used to protect
against circular cross-references between linked
objects; the server mode offers interactive control over
graph mapping of inserted objects.
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ActiveX/OLE
Overview. STATISTICA offers a
comprehensive implementation of both client and server ActiveX/OLE
functionality. The server facilities offered in STATISTICA
allow STATISTICA graphics objects to be embedded or linked
into other applications.  For
example, a STATISTICA graph pasted or paste-linked into a
word processor can be easily edited (using all STATISTICA
customization facilities) by double-clicking on the graph in your
word processor document. Those OLE server facilities are
supplemented by comprehensive support for OLE client services (see
the below). All STATISTICA graphics documents can serve as
clients (ActiveX containers) for objects from other applications (or
STATISTICA own objects). Foreign files can be inserted and
opened directly into STATISTICA graphs (and optionally
linked to their sources to allow for automatic updates when the
source files change). ActiveX/OLE-compatible applications can also
be called directly from within STATISTICA graphics documents to
create new objects to be inserted (e.g., equation editors [as shown
on the illustration on the left], and other specialized
applications, or word processors, spreadsheets, etc.). The nesting
of objects can be up to 4 levels deep (i.e., an object can be
embedded in an object, that is embedded in another object, that is
embedded in another object). For example, you can paste into STATISTICA
graphs foreign objects that are containers for other containers. All
ActiveX/OLE objects in STATISTICA documents can be linked
and they can be updated dynamically; proprietary technology is used
to protect against circular cross-references between STATISTICA
OLE objects even on older Windows systems. Both
ActiveX/OLE-compliant and incompatible file-objects can be dragged
(across application windows) directly from the Windows Explorer and
dropped onto STATISTICA graph windows for further editing
and adjustment (as shown on the illustration on the left).
Applications. The ActiveX/OLE functionality saves time and
offer obvious advantages when STATISTICA graphs are used in
other applications (e.g., word processor documents).The client
options offer powerful tools to build custom-designed artwork or
dynamically updatable and/or efficiently "compressed"
documents (e.g., such as compound documents mentioned in the
previous paragraph). Also, many new types of STATISTICA
graphs can be built using this technology. The compound graph
document facilities provide the user with great flexibility for
building new types of combination-graphs and graphical displays.
They also offer the most straightforward and intuitive access to all
graph customization facilities and methods to update the documents;
updating the component graphs is as easy as clicking the mouse.
Compound documents with embedded or linked objects can also be
created in STATISTICA Visual Basic.
Datasets in Graphs
STATISTICA can produce graphs from datasets of unlimited
size (e.g., scatterplots with hundreds of thousands of data points
can be created to explore patterns of outliers). In order to help
create readable graphs from extremely large datasets, an option is
provided to use a fast data-image reduction procedure to generate
representative "compressions" of large numbers of
observations. STATISTICA, by default, takes advantage of
all relevant information in the data file, including all
alphanumeric (text) values that can be used for labeling graphs
(categories, subsets, individual observations, etc.), including
their in-cell formats and special attributes. Also, facilities are
provided to use values from any variable (or case names) as labels
for data points, categories, or subsets in all graphs. When graphs
are linked to their respective datasets, then not only numeric data
values, but also text values, labels, titles, etc. derived from the
original dataset can be automatically updated when the source
dataset changes.
Graph Customization
 Practically
every detail of the appearance of the graph (hundreds of
specifications) can be controlled by the user and accessed directly
from the screen (see the following topics on Mouse support), from
the location, style and length of minor tick marks to the overall
proportions of the graph and its position on the page. The
adjustments can be performed with a minimum number of mouse clicks
or keystrokes (see the section on Shortcuts), and they also can be
converted into permanent defaults for the particular type of the
graph (default "style sheets"); libraries of such graph
styles can be maintained (see the section on Configuration).
Comprehensive facilities to control the sizes and patterns of all
graph components are provided. The line width and marker sizes can
be adjusted in fractions of a point (1/4 of a point is 1/288 of an
inch). These size control facilities can be globally and
interactively adjusted by controlling the graph mapping options
(that is, the manner in which the metric of user settings for sizes
of objects gets transformed into physical sizes of the respective
objects in the display or printout). In addition to large selections
of predefined patterns (e.g., 32 predefined fill patterns), unique
facilities are provided to custom-design two-color styles of
line-patterns, point marker-patterns, and fill-patterns (e.g., a
navy blue circle-shaped point-marker with a gray inside fill pattern
or a dotted line consisting of red and blue dots). Specialized
predefined (default) color palettes are provided for particular
graph components. Moreover, flexible facilities are provided to
custom-design new palettes using unlimited numbers of colors as
supported by the current device.
Scales
 A
large number of options allows the user to control every aspect of
the scales. For example, support is provided for multiple (parallel)
scales. Scales may feature multiple (true) scales breaks that can be
used to "compress" specified segments of the display.
Scale values can be placed at arbitrary locations and their format
can be controlled using a selection of options. Moreover, facilities
are provided to automate tedious aspects of scale definitions; for
example, date scale values can be created automatically, STATISTICA
can be instructed to display only every n'th scale value, specific
aspects of the scale definitions can be automatically transferred to
the opposite scale or to all scales. Note that all those graph
customization, drawing, object management, etc. facilities are fully
supported in the syntax of STATISTICA Visual Basic (please
refer to the section on graphics in STATISTICA Visual
Basic).
The Comprehensive System for Managing Graph Styles
 One
of the general strengths of the graph customization facilities in STATISTICA
are the options to automate and speed up repeated custom operations.
Practically all types of customizations can be saved in form of
custom styles (with arbitrary names), and any of these styles may
also serve as global or local defaults, and this applies to hundreds
of specifications. For example, even each of the drawing tools can
be customized to avoid repeated adjustments (e.g., sizes, colors,
patterns, scaling, locking); complete definitions of individual
scales (e.g., with custom positioned scale values with special
subscript formatting and bold prefixes, patterns, formats, breaks,
etc.) or complete sets of all scales (for a graph) can be saved as
reusable templates, or copied and pasted via the Clipboard as custom
objects. Custom definitions of surface or contour levels (with
specific value ranges, patterns, colors, palettes, etc.) can be
saved as reusable templates. More global sets of specifications (new
partial or complete graph styles) can be saved as menu or toolbar
options (see the section on Shortcuts). Also, custom selections of
specific graph customizations can also be converted into
"single-click shortcuts" by storing them as macros (either
recorded or edited) and assigning them to buttons on local or global
toolbars. Moreover, custom types of graph customizations can also be
defined (and assigned to buttons) using STATISTICA Visual
Basic).
Mouse Support
 Comprehensive
LEFT-mouse-button support. All graph customization options
can be accessed directly from the display by clicking on the
respective graph components or objects. Unlike clicking the
RIGHT-mouse-button (which pops up a menu of all relevant
customization dialogs for the object, see the next topic), a
double-click with the LEFT-mouse-button directly brings up the most
commonly used customization dialog for the object (see the
illustration). A single-click with the LEFT-mouse-button will select
(i.e., highlight) a graphic object to be modified (e.g., dragged,
resized, rotated, see below). A single-click on a data point will
select (highlight) all data points that belong to the current
series, such as subsets of data in multiple or multiple-subset
scatterplots (see the topic on Graphics technology). Other
operations that can be performed with the LEFT-mouse-button include
drawing, embedding, unlocking objects, zooming, various types of
brushing, scrolling graph magnifications, rotating text, etc. The
mouse can also be used in all graphs to select the respective data
series (or bring up the local Graph Data Editor containing the data
values; this option is supported for all graphs, even those which
display derived or computed data, e.g., probability plots).
 Comprehensive
RIGHT-mouse-button support. As everywhere else in STATISTICA
(e.g., spreadsheets), clicking with the RIGHT-mouse-button on an
object will pop-up a shortcut menu of all available categories of
operations which can be performed on the selected graph component or
object (see the illustration). This facility allows you to avoid
going through hierarchies (multiple levels) of dialogs by making the
complete list of all last-order dialogs available directly. If you
click the RIGHT-mouse-button outside any specific objects or graph
components, a global shortcut menu for the graph will pop up
allowing you to select from among several global options.
 Smoothness
and precision of dragging, brushing, drawing, etc. As
mentioned before, the mouse is used in STATISTICA to
perform a variety of interactive operations on graphic objects (such
as dragging, proportional and nonproportional resizing, realigning,
rotating, stretching, selecting/highlighting, zooming, drawing,
etc.). The technology supporting all of those operations in STATISTICA
ensures "smooth" and precise graph-customizations and
adjustments. All of them can also be performed in zoom mode (see
below) to further increase the precision. Custom
resolution-enhancement redrawing procedures are used to deliver
clean and precise outcomes regardless of the size and proportions of
the window, the degree of magnification (zoom), or the graph mapping
mode. Also, keyboard cursor keys can be used to emulate the
interactive mouse operations on highlighted objects, and when the
Ctrl key is pressed, the movement can be performed in the smallest
increments supported on the current device (one pixel).
User-Interface Shortcuts
Graph creation. The number of mouse clicks normally
required to produce even elaborate and customized graphs is reduced
to the very minimum. However, the necessary user-input can be
reduced and simplified even further by:
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- defining new, complete graph types and adding them
permanently to the menu or assigning them to buttons on
toolbars or to hot keys (both options are illustrated in
the screen at left);
- using the internal batch processing facility (allowing
you to create and automatically print, save, or insert
into a report, long sequences of graphs, e.g., the same
type of graph for each variable in a long list of
variables);
- using recorded and/or edited macros to create specific
graphs (which can then be assigned to buttons on the
global or local toolbars or to hot keys);
- specifying graphs via the STATISTICA Visual
Basic language; this may include even long sequences of
highly customized graphs, compound graphs, custom
drawings, diagrams, or other displays connected to data
or interactively controlled by user-defined input; these
custom graphics procedures can also be assigned to
buttons on the global or local floating toolbars (see
the illustration at left) or to hot keys;
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Graph customization. The appearance of even the
default graphs in STATISTICA is very refined, and thus the
graphs are defined by hundreds of settings. The layout and
appearance of each of those graph components can be independently
customized. The number of mouse clicks normally required to produce
even elaborate customizations of graphs is reduced to the very
minimum. However, the necessary user-input can be simplified even
further by:
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- using predefined toolbar buttons offering direct
("single-click") access to a variety of global
operations, such as zoom, plot region, margins,
proportions, mapping mode, or simultaneous proportional
resizing of all fonts, markers, etc. in the current
graph and/or all fonts, markers, etc. in embedded
graphs;
- using the predefined, system hot keys and other
keyboard shortcuts;
- using the user-defined system of styles (mentioned
above) to adjust the permanent global or local defaults;
libraries of such custom styles and default styles can
be maintained;
- merging graphs, which offers another way to transfer
all customizations from one graph to another;
- creating reusable objects/templates/styles from
specific parts of a respective graph (e.g., all scale
definitions including custom-formatted scale values,
etc.; all definitions of levels and shading in a surface
plot or contour plot);
- defining new, customized graph types and adding them
permanently to the menu or assigning them to buttons on
the global or local floating toolbars (see illustration
at left), or hot keys;
- using recorded and/or edited macros to define specific
types of graph customizations (which can then be
assigned to buttons on the global or local floating
toolbars or to hot keys);
- specifying new graph customizations in the STATISTICA
Visual Basic language; this may include customizations
of compound graphs, custom drawings, diagrams; the
customizations can be interactively controlled by
user-defined input entered into dialog boxes defined
with the Visual Basic's interactive dialog editor; these
custom-defined graph customizations (e.g., place a text
label "xyz" rotated by 25° at a specified
position in the graph) can be assigned to buttons on the
global or local toolbars to create sets of
custom-defined customizations (or to hot keys).
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 Creating
multigraphics displays (AutoLayout Wizard). An often
tedious task when creating complex multigraphics displays is to
precisely arrange multiple graphs or objects on one page or slide,
and to adjust their scaling. One of STATISTICA's Wizard
facilities (the AutoLayout Wizard, see the illustration) was
designed to simplify this task and to accomplish it for you with a
minimum number of mouse actions. You can select saved or unsaved
graphs from all currently open STATISTICA modules, or files
saved to the disk. Then pick up a layout from a gallery of
preselected layouts (suggested by STATISTICA depending on
the number of objects you have selected, see the illustration at
left); at this point, you can take advantage of facilities to adjust
scaling, margins, auto titles, footnotes, etc. Now, when you press
OK, STATISTICA will create perfectly aligned and
proportioned artwork. Obviously, custom "menus" of layouts
created with the help of this Wizard can be placed on toolbars for
repeated use (via "single-click" access).
Graphic Text Editor
 Practically
unlimited amounts of text (including long reports with embedded
graphs) can be inserted into STATISTICA graphs as active
ActiveX/OLE objects, metafiles, or as text. An integrated, WYSIWYG
graphic text editor can be used to create even highly customized
text and labels. The editor includes its own specialized toolbars
and offers not only the standard text formatting features (complete
font control, text justification, borders, background, etc.) but
also such options to insert symbols from any character set (e.g.,
Greek letters). Options are provided to insert auto-updatable fields
including text of specific equations fitted to the data, legend
symbols for specific plots within the graph, levels for contour
lines and areas (shading), etc.; this facility allows you set up
custom auto-updatable legends and lists of functions (e.g., for
categorized graphs or graphs with multiple plots). The anchor point
can be adjusted independently of the text justification (e.g., a
text centered within its box can be anchored by its lower right
corner) and tools are provided to rotate the text in 1o increments,
either by specifying the angle or by rotating the text interactively
on the screen (when you are rotating the text interactively by
dragging its corner on the screen, then the current rotation angle
is displayed in the toolbar show field).
Configuration, User Preferences
 As
mentioned before, by using the flexible system of styles,
practically all graph customization settings can become permanent
program defaults (global or local, for a specific project) that will
affect new graphs. This applies not only to sizes, colors, patterns,
styles, backgrounds, scales, fonts, titles, etc. of almost countless
specific graph components, but also to such global features as the
way in which graphs are scaled and mapped into the plot region, the
margins within graph windows, window proportions, etc. As mentioned
before, in order to facilitate the set-up of desired configurations
of graph defaults, options are provided to automatically
"copy" all the settings from the current active graph into
a style, and then they can be modified further or saved as
selectable templates into your library of alternative graph styles.
Drawing, On-Screen Customization
 Unlimited
numbers of objects can be added to every graph via an extensive
selection of linking and embedding facilities and a comprehensive
set of on-screen drawing tools is available at any point while
viewing graphs. The tools include elementary objects such as lines,
rectangles, polygons, ovals, rounded rectangles, arcs, etc., as well
as specialized facilities such as free-hand drawing tools producing
editable objects, user-defined styles of arrows (of practically
unlimited shapes and styles), a user-defined "error bar"
tool, and a flexible WYSIWYG text editor supporting multi-line text
and special formatting options (see the Graphic text editor topic
above). All drawn or imported graphic objects remain
"active" and modifiable and you can always customize them
in a variety of ways. All objects can be interactively resized,
repositioned, or dynamically related to particular graph locations.
Also, you can change colors of objects, their line patterns, fill
patterns, line widths, and backgrounds, place frames around them,
attach labels, etc. All custom editing, pattern, and size selection
facilities offered by STATISTICA (see the Graph
customization topic, above) can be applied to STATISTICA's
custom graphic objects. Many special, CAD-style drawing and object
manipulation facilities are provided for precise analytic or
presentation effects. For example, STATISTICA graphic
objects can be proportionately resized, stretched in one direction,
or their shapes can be custom-edited by adjusting individual
micro-segments (curve-components) of the already finished free-hand
drawings (e.g., if a free-hand drawing has the shape of an apple,
you can "pull-in" its sides to make it look more like a
pear). The micro-adjustments can be performed in zoom mode (see
below). The Clipboard can be used to facilitate drawing and to build
compound objects; special internal Clipboard representations are
supported to copy complex object structures in a way that is
transparent for the user. One click of the mouse on a toolbar button
will allow you to adjust the default "redraw order" for
every custom graphic object (e.g., to pull up a hidden object to the
front); this also allows you to achieve special presentation effects
(e.g., you can experiment with adding different full or partial
backgrounds to an existing graph) or to meet special analytic goals
(e.g., you can insert a component of one graph
"underneath" another for graph comparisons). The selection
of these and other facilities of the STATISTICA drawing
system (see below) was designed to make sure that the user will
never need a "designated presentation graphics" or
"diagram-drawing" program.
Drawing in Zoom Mode, Special Mouse Actions, Alignment of
Objects,
Customized "Snap-to-Grid"
 Drawing
and manipulating objects on the screen and changing their styles and
attributes is as easy as moving the mouse. The shortcut menus
associated with objects (and invoked by clicking the
RIGHT-mouse-button on the object) speed up the access to specific
customization facilities. At any point of drawing or creating
technical diagrams, you can switch to the zoom mode and draw
"under a magnifying glass" to achieve superior precision
and gain access to small details. You can also switch to the scroll
graph area in zoom mode and effectively examine the graph under a
magnifying glass (or perhaps, one should say, a microscope). You can
interactively stretch not only the entire graph (while optionally
maintaining its proportions), but also selectively add space in any
of the margins (e.g., for embedded objects, comments, etc.) by using
another area adjustment tool (accessible by pressing a button on the
toolbar). Facilities are provided to precisely align objects (in
fixed window coordinates or dynamic graph scaling units); all
graphic objects can be attached to specific graph- or
window-coordinates. Also, a user-defined, customizable
"snap-to-grid" facility is provided and can be
enabled/disabled via hot keys (the display of the actual alignment
grid can also be toggled by pressing a hot key).
Quality of Graphical Displays, Resolution, Fonts
 STATISTICA
offers the highest quality and precision of graphical output
supported by the currently available hardware. In fact, the program
internally generates all graphical displays at a higher resolution
than what is available in existing output devices. All scaleable
fonts and symbol sets are supported in 3-dimensional displays, the
fonts are transformed in the respective planes of the 3-dimensional
space and according to the user-controlled 3D perspective
(non-transformed fonts can also be selected); proprietary technology
is used to achieve the highest quality of 3D transformations of
fonts (see the illustration). Also Postscript fonts can be used in
graphs and transformed in 3D perspective. Every predefined category
of graph features a separately designed set of size-coordinated and
dynamically adjusted labels, titles, and legends, all of which can
be easily resized and edited by the user.
Saving, Exporting Graphs
All graphs can be saved into active STATISTICA graphics
documents (ActiveX objects) that can be placed on the web, embedded
in other applications as active in-place editable objects, etc. They
contain not only all the graphics components of the objects
(including all their customizations, drawings, embedded objects,
references to linked external files, links to raw datasets, etc.),
but also all the respective datasets, thus allowing the user to
continue interactive graphical data analysis (brushing, fitting,
smoothing, rotating, editing of data, changing categorizations,
selected subsets, etc., and all on-screen objects). All graphs can
also be saved into a variety of graphics file formats allowing you
to exchange artwork with other graphics applications without using
the Clipboard. Supported formats include JPG, PNG (a new version of
GIF), Windows metafiles (WMF), device-independent bitmaps (BMP),
Postscript files (EPS), and others. |
