Algorithm for “nice” grid line intervals on a graph

Question

I need a reasonably smart algorithm to come up with \"nice\" grid lines for a graph (chart).

For example, assume a bar chart with values of 10, 30, 72 and 60. You k

Answer 1

I wrote an objective-c method to return a nice axis scale and nice ticks for given min- and max values of your data set:

- (NSArray*)niceAxis:(double)minValue :(double)maxValue
{
    double min_ = 0, max_ = 0, min = minValue, max = maxValue, power = 0, factor = 0, tickWidth, minAxisValue = 0, maxAxisValue = 0;
    NSArray *factorArray = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"0.0f",@"1.2f",@"2.5f",@"5.0f",@"10.0f",nil];
    NSArray *scalarArray = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:@"0.2f",@"0.2f",@"0.5f",@"1.0f",@"2.0f",nil];

    // calculate x-axis nice scale and ticks
    // 1. min_
    if (min == 0) {
        min_ = 0;
    }
    else if (min > 0) {
        min_ = MAX(0, min-(max-min)/100);
    }
    else {
        min_ = min-(max-min)/100;
    }

    // 2. max_
    if (max == 0) {
        if (min == 0) {
            max_ = 1;
        }
        else {
            max_ = 0;
        }
    }
    else if (max < 0) {
        max_ = MIN(0, max+(max-min)/100);
    }
    else {
        max_ = max+(max-min)/100;
    }

    // 3. power
    power = log(max_ - min_) / log(10);

    // 4. factor
    factor = pow(10, power - floor(power));

    // 5. nice ticks
    for (NSInteger i = 0; factor > [[factorArray objectAtIndex:i]doubleValue] ; i++) {
        tickWidth = [[scalarArray objectAtIndex:i]doubleValue] * pow(10, floor(power));
    }

    // 6. min-axisValues
    minAxisValue = tickWidth * floor(min_/tickWidth);

    // 7. min-axisValues
    maxAxisValue = tickWidth * floor((max_/tickWidth)+1);

    // 8. create NSArray to return
    NSArray *niceAxisValues = [NSArray arrayWithObjects:[NSNumber numberWithDouble:minAxisValue], [NSNumber numberWithDouble:maxAxisValue],[NSNumber numberWithDouble:tickWidth], nil];

    return niceAxisValues;
}

You can call the method like this:

NSArray *niceYAxisValues = [self niceAxis:-maxy :maxy];

and get you axis setup:

double minYAxisValue = [[niceYAxisValues objectAtIndex:0]doubleValue];
double maxYAxisValue = [[niceYAxisValues objectAtIndex:1]doubleValue];
double ticksYAxis = [[niceYAxisValues objectAtIndex:2]doubleValue];

Just in case you want to limit the number of axis ticks do this:

NSInteger maxNumberOfTicks = 9;
NSInteger numberOfTicks = valueXRange / ticksXAxis;
NSInteger newNumberOfTicks = floor(numberOfTicks / (1 + floor(numberOfTicks/(maxNumberOfTicks+0.5))));
double newTicksXAxis = ticksXAxis * (1 + floor(numberOfTicks/(maxNumberOfTicks+0.5)));

The first part of the code is based on the calculation I found here to calculate nice graph axis scale and ticks similar to excel graphs. It works excellent for all kind of data sets. Here is an example of an iPhone implementation: