How To Use the UniformAxis Property to Control Chart Scaling (194221)

SUMMARY

When creating an XY Scatter chart using the MSChart control, the resulting chart may appear distorted; that is, very tall and narrow or very short and wide. This occurs on an XY Scatter chart whose axes have ranges that differ by a large amount. For example, an X axis with a range of 0 - 10000 and a Y axis of 0 - 50.

MORE INFORMATION

By default, the scale on the axes of an XY (Scatter) chart is uniform. If the x-values are small in comparison to the y-values, or vice versa, the chart may appear distorted. To allow the scaling of each axis to be independent, change the UniformAxis property of the Plot object to False. The default value of this property is True.

Step-by-Step Example

Start Visual Basic and create a new Standard EXE project. Form1 is created by default.
Click Components from the Project menu and check the "Microsoft Chart Control" component. The MSChart control is made available on the Toolbox.
Put an MSChart control on Form1.

Copy and paste the following code to the form's code window:

      Private Sub Form_Load()
         Dim Graph(1 To 10, 1 To 2) As Single
         Dim x As Integer
         For x = 1 To 10
            Graph(x, 1) = x   ' value for X-axis
            Graph(x, 2) = x * 10 ' value for Y-axis
         Next x
         MSChart1.chartType = VtChChartType2dXY  ' set to X Y Scatter chart
         MSChart1 = Graph ' populate chart's data grid using Graph array
         ' Leave the following line commented until step 6:
         'MSChart1.Plot.UniformAxis = False
      End Sub

Press the F5 key to run the project. Note that the chart is not legible (tall and narrow) because both x and y axes are using the same scale and the y-values are larger than the x-values.
Stop the project and remove the comment on the last line of code.
Press the F5 key to run the project, and note that the chart is legible.