Producing quantitative diagrams

Until now, our diagrams presented objects in order or in relation to each other. Now, we will visualize and compare actual values utilizing diagrams.

Line charts

Numerical data is often a series of values measured over time. These values can be displayed as data points on a plane, with the x axis for the time and the y axis for the values. Connecting lines show the trend over time. This is called a line chart. Such a chart can contain multiple line series to display different datasets to see them in relation. The x axis doesn’t need to represent time; it could be any other base value, such as age, weight, or other data to correlate with values.

In Figure 12.5, we saw how a line chart could be plotted, and Chapter 13, Plotting in 2D and 3D, showed tools to plot in a coordinate system. pgfplots provides a perfect setting to display values in a plane by lines or bars with annotations.

This section will compare the graphics packages TikZ...