The Graph, Scientific Graph, Polar/Smith Chart and Scatter mode of the 3D Scientific Graph object provide a comparison subset mechanism. This mechanism splits the object's subsets into two groups. The first group comprises the normal non-comparison subsets, and the second group comprises the comparison subsets. The second group's size (or quantity of comparison subsets) is controlled with either the ComparisonSubsets or RYAxisComparisonSubsets properties. Depending on which of these two properties is used, the comparison subsets will be plotted with respect to the left or right y axis. To help characterize which subsets are comparison subsets, they are plotted in a secondary plotting method PlottingMethodII.

The benefit of using ComparisonSubsets is ease of use and a more controlled end-users interface related to forcing logical groups of data, i.e. a primay plotting style combined with an overlaying comparison group.

However, if you need more control over plotting methods, use the feature PlottingMethods which allows per subset control of plotting methods plus per subset control of left and/or right y axis designation.

Within the demo, see example 003.

To discuss ComparisonSubset in more detail, lets look at some examples.

Example, if you have 5 subsets and set ComparisonSubsets = 2,

The Graph object can automatically generate comparison subsets through the AutoStatSubsets property array.

Note that comparison subsets which have identical data for all points will not be included in the Graph Objects table section. They will only be included into the graph section. TableComparisonSubsets can be set to TRUE to disable this feature.

Some example scenarios are:

a) Chart with one subset as a bar and one subset as a line.

b) Chart with three subsets as lines and two subsets as points.

c) Chart with two subsets as points and three subsets as lines and the lines are plotted with respect to the right y axis.

d) Open/High/Low/Close chart with volume line data on the same scale.

Similar to ComparisonSubsets and RYAxisComparisonSubsets is TXAxisComparisonSubsets. The Scientific Graph uses this property to split the object's subsets into a different two groups. The first group is plotted with respect to the bottom x axis, and the second group is plotted with respect to the top x axis. This property has no impact on subset plotting methods.

Chart with two subsets as points and three subsets as lines and the lines are plotted with respect to the right y axis and the top x axis.