Working with Chart Axis Scale Breaks

Axis scale breaks are most commonly used in the following cases:

• When you have to display data that varies greatly in magnitude.
• When you need to reduce the effect that several large values (peaks in data) have on the scaling of the rest of data.
• When you want to skip data that is of no interest in order to focus on the rest of the data.

Nevron Chart fully supports scale breaks on all types of axes (horizontal, vertical, depth, reversed, date time etc.) in both 2D and 3D mode and allows you to have complete control over the scale break position and style.

As shown on the above picture (Fig. 1), the noise levels raise dramatically between 10 to 12 o’clock creating a peak in data. The effect is to visually marginalize the other smaller peaks in the sound level, thus reducing the ability of the user of the chart to analyze these smaller peaks. In cases like this one you may consider to introduce a scale break on the y axis in order to increase the chart readability. The following chart (Fig. 2) shows how an automatic scale break will effectively increase the visual space available for the data:

This is achieved through the following code:

[C#]
NAxis primaryY = (NAxis)chart.Axis (StandardAxis.PrimaryY);
NStandardScaleConfigurator noiseScale = primaryY.ScaleConfigurator as NStandardScaleConfigurator;

NAutoScaleBreak autoScaleBreak = new NAutoScaleBreak();
noiseScale.ScaleBreaks.Add (autoScaleBreak);

[VB.NET]
Dim primaryY As NAxis = chart.Axis(StandardAxis.PrimaryY)
Dim noiseScale As NStandardScaleConfigurator = CType (primaryY.ScaleConfigurator, NStandardScaleConfigurator)

Dim autoScaleBreak As NAutoScaleBreak = New NAutoScaleBreak()
noiseScale.ScaleBreaks.Add (autoScaleBreak)

Notice that now the smaller peaks in data are now more visible, but the chart still does not look quite good. In particular the scale break filling and style do not match the visual appearance of the chart, therefore it is a nice idea to introduce wave scale break style with some other filling (Fig. 3):

This is done with one line of code:

[C#]
autoScaleBreak.Position = new NContentScaleBreakPosition();

[VB.NET]
autoScaleBreak.Position = New NContentScaleBreakPosition()

Nevron Chart for .NET fully supports scale breaks and additionally allows you to customize a variety of options to get the desired result for your charts. Very few charting packages support this level of flexibility when working with scale breaks. More information on scale breaks is available in the Users Guide shipped with the fully-functional evaluation of the Chart component.