[ncl-talk] Modifying a boxplot diagram's x-axis

Alan Rhoades alan.m.rhoades at gmail.com
Tue May 19 16:52:37 MDT 2015


Hi Adam,

Thanks for the prompt reply!  The description of the @boxWidth command was
very helpful.

I am still curious if there is a possible way to push all of the x-axis
labels closer together, maintain the x-axis label font size, and thus
eliminate the physical gaps, rather than simply filling in the space with
the boxplot lines via @boxWidth?  It seems that no matter what value you
scale the x-axis to (i.e., 1 to 15 by 1, or 0 to 1 by 1/15) the space on
the plot image is still maintained on the x-axis and "awkward" spacing is
still seen between the x-axis tickmark labels.

All the best,

AR

On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 3:30 PM, Adam Phillips <asphilli at ucar.edu> wrote:

> Hi Alan,
> The boxplot function was made to be flexible, and thus should accept most
> if not all relevant resources thrown its way.
>
> You are right to focus in on your xdata_BOX_ALL array. (In your script
> this equals the input X-axis center value for each box.) However, you also
> likely need to modify your opti_all at boxWidth resource (=width of boxes in
> x-axis units).
>
> For instance, if you set things this way:
> xdata_BOX_ALL array = (/1,2,3,4/)
> opti_all at boxWidth = 0.25
> then each box would be 0.25 units wide centered around x-axis values of 1,
> 2, 3, and 4.
>
> However, if you set things this way:
> xdata_BOX_ALL array = (/1,2,3,4/)
> opti_all at boxWidth = 0.90
>
> There would be very little space (=.1) between each box as the first box
> will go from 0.55 to 1.45 along the x-axis, the second from 1.55 to 2.45,
> etc..
>
> I just tested the above in a toy script I have here and I was able to
> reduce the space between the boxes.
>
> Hope that's helps. If not, let ncl-talk know..
> Adam
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 19, 2015 at 3:30 PM, Alan Rhoades <alan.m.rhoades at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I'm trying to modify a boxplot diagram (see attached *.pdf image) so that
>> the x-axis doesn't take up as much room (i.e., make the boxes tighter
>> together by eliminating the spacing in between them).  I've tried several
>> different things, but none seem to work.  I've attached the script to this
>> email (unfortunately the data file is large and can't be attached too).
>> I'm assuming that there is an NCL resource that I haven't yet tapped into
>> that can do the trick.
>>
>> Here is an example of what I've tried so far to scale the x-axis values
>> (using fspan), but unfortunately didn't work...
>>
>> xdata_BOX_ALL = fspan(1,xdata_num_BOX_ALL,15)
>>
>> ...changing the above to...
>>
>> xdata_BOX_ALL = fspan(1,0.25*xdata_num_BOX_ALL,15)
>> xdata_BOX_ALL = fspan(1,0.5*xdata_num_BOX_ALL,15)
>>
>> ...and I tried modifying some of the ncl resource options too, but I
>> think the boxplot plotting function is a unique case and doesn't respond
>> like other plots would.
>>
>> Any ideas on how to do this?  I may have missed a few plotting resources,
>> so any insights are helpful.
>>
>> All the best,
>>
>> AR
>>
>> --
>>
>> *Alan Rhoades*
>> *PhD Student, Atmospheric Science Graduate Group*
>> *Climate Change Water and Society (CCWAS) NSF IGERT Trainee*
>> *University of California, Davis*
>> *LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/pub/alan-rhoades/22/5bb/52a>*
>> *alan.m.rhoades at gmail.com <alan.m.rhoades at gmail.com> *
>> *amrhoades at ucdavis.edu <amrhoades at ucdavis.edu>*
>>
>> *"It’s all really there. That’s what really gets you. But you gotta stop
>> and think about it to really get the pleasure about the complexity, the
>> inconceivable nature of nature."*
>> *Richard Feynman*
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> Adam Phillips
> Associate Scientist,  Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, NCAR
> www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/asphilli/   303-497-1726
>
> <http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/asphilli>
>



-- 

*Alan Rhoades*
*PhD Student, Atmospheric Science Graduate Group*
*Climate Change Water and Society (CCWAS) NSF IGERT Trainee*
*University of California, Davis*
*LinkedIn <https://www.linkedin.com/pub/alan-rhoades/22/5bb/52a>*
*alan.m.rhoades at gmail.com <alan.m.rhoades at gmail.com> *
*amrhoades at ucdavis.edu <amrhoades at ucdavis.edu>*

*"It’s all really there. That’s what really gets you. But you gotta stop
and think about it to really get the pleasure about the complexity, the
inconceivable nature of nature."*
*Richard Feynman*
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