HOWTO: Plot X/Y Coordinate Values on a Scatter Chart

• Microsoft Visual Basic Learning, Professional, and Enterprise Editions for Windows, version 5.0

SUMMARY

The MS Chart control can create an XY Scatter chart that you can use to plot X/Y coordinate data. This article shows you how to create a sample program that displays X/Y coordinate data on a Scatter chart using the MS Chart control.

MORE INFORMATION

You can create an XY Scatter chart by treating your data points as a two- dimensional grid. This grid comprised one or more data series. Each data series in the grid takes two columns and as many rows as you have data points. For example, the first and second columns make up the X and Y coordinates of the first data series. The third and fourth columns make up the X and Y coordinates of the second data series, and so on. The following shows a sample grid. In this grid, the first data series is made up of the following 10 data points:

   1,2  2,4  3,6  4,8  5,10  6,12  7,14  8,16  9,18  10,20

   3,4  6,8  9,12  12,16  15,20  18,24  21,28  24,32  27,36  30,40

 First    Second
 Series   Series
 X   Y    X   Y

 01  02   03  04
 02  04   06  08
 03  06   09  12
 04  08   12  16
 05  10   15  20
 06  12   18  24
 07  14   21  28
 08  16   24  32
 09  18   27  36
 10  20   30  40

   MSChart1.Column = 1
   MSChart1.Row = 1
   MSChart1.Data = 1000

Step-by-Step Example

This project assumes you added the MS Chart Component to the project. The project will plot the previously described data.

1. Start a new Standard EXE project in Visual Basic. Form1 is created by default.

2. Add a Chart control and a CommandButton to Form1.

3. In the MS Chart property window, click the Custom property ellipses button to display the property pages. On the Chart Tab, check XY (Scatter) for the Chart type.

4. Copy the following code to the Code window of Form1:

         Private Sub Command1_Click()
            Dim x As Integer, y As Integer
   
            MSChart1.RowCount = 10
            MSChart1.ColumnCount = 4
   
            For y = 1 To 4
                MSChart1.Column = y
                For x = 1 To 10
                    MSChart1.Row = x
                    MSChart1.Data = x * y
                Next x
            Next y
         End Sub
   
   

5. Press the F5 key to run the program. Click the CommandButton and the data is plotted.