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

Adam Phillips asphilli at ucar.edu
Tue May 19 17:34:51 MDT 2015


Hi Alan,
It sounds like what you want is to change the aspect ratio of the plot. Try setting vpWidthF = 0.4 in the plot resource list.  (The default is 0.6 for both vpWidthF and vpHeightF.) That should compress your x-axis by a third.
Adam



> On May 19, 2015, at 4:52 PM, Alan Rhoades <alan.m.rhoades at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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
>>> alan.m.rhoades at gmail.com 
>>> 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
>>> 
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> ncl-talk mailing list
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>>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Adam Phillips 
>> Associate Scientist,  Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, NCAR
>> www.cgd.ucar.edu/staff/asphilli/   303-497-1726
>> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> Alan Rhoades
> PhD Student, Atmospheric Science Graduate Group
> Climate Change Water and Society (CCWAS) NSF IGERT Trainee
> University of California, Davis
> LinkedIn
> alan.m.rhoades at gmail.com 
> 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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