如何解除使用proc gchart创建的图形？

Question

我在SAS中使用了proc gchart和以下代码来生成此处显示的图表。

proc gchart data=combined;
vbar distrct / discrete type=sum sumvar=PERCENT
subgroup= population coutline=gray width=6;
run;

然而，正如您所看到的那样，单个可变条似乎堆叠得非常紧密并且难以理解。我有110个代表种族密度的变量条

我的问题是

  

  

1. 有没有办法让这个图看起来不那么杂乱（我尝试减小宽度，但似乎不起作用）？

  

2. 我应该使用与g图表程序不同的程序吗？

  

Answer 1

2 is easier to answer; proc gchart is mostly replaced by proc sgplot nowadays. It's still maintained, but I don't think much new work is being done in gchart or the other sas/graph procedures.

As for how to make it better; there are some answers, definitely, for how to improve it, but ultimately trying to show 110 bars each split by four ethnicities, means your'e showing 440 data points on one graph. That's going to be a tough lift no matter what.

The first thing I'd consider is switching to horizontal. Horizontal may allow you to have a larger graph, allowing for more spacing, and often times readers have an easier time reading horizontal charts when combining that with stacked bar charts. Scrolling is also easier up-down for most people (a mouse wheel), so if it's okay that they not see it on one screen this may be better. It also allows the bar titles to be presented in the usual left-to-right manner.

Second, consider if your bars can be grouped together. Do you have regions or such that allow you to group bars together, with a bit more spacing between the region? Or more importantly, are there bars that you'd like the readers to be comparing visually to each other? Right now it looks like it's sorted alphabetically, but that is probably not the right way to sort it if there's any sort of relationship between the bars. For example, does the area have sub-areas that are ethnically related? Maybe group those together; or by just geographies (here is the north-east section, here's the east, here's the south-west, etc.) Any time you can group like-things together it makes it easier for the reader to understand what they're looking at and draw sensible conclusions.

You could also sort them by a particular racial makeup - say, in descending order of "color" which seems the dominant population group - which is often an effective way to present data that's this cluttered, as a reader can both see the trend and can find, say, their neighborhood and see where it falls in the order just by looking.

Best overall though might be to group the district up and then display that, so you have many fewer bars. If there's a sensible way to do that, that'll get your idea across more effectively.