3-D Software Gives New Perspective to Graphics
Remember your senior class picture, the one where you’re sixth row up from the bottom, 15th in from the left . . . er, maybe that’s you second row from the top over near the right.
Unfortunately, business graphs can end up the same way--too much data crammed into too small a space to make sense. At least that’s the way it is with the typical two-dimensional graphics program.
A little perspective can change all that. In fact, Perspective is the name of a three-dimensional business graphics program published by Three D Graphics (860 Via de la Paz, Pacific Palisades, Calif. 90272, telephone (213) 455-2083).
The difference between viewing complex data two-dimensionally and three-dimensionally is like the difference between trying to understand the geography of Los Angeles by driving along a freeway, compared to seeing it from an airplane.
What Perspective gives you amounts to an aerial view of your data. When they say 3-D, they mean the real thing, not just graphs with fake shadows tacked onto the sides of the bars. Carrying the flying analogy just a step further, Perspective also allows you to position your “airship” at just about any vantage point from which you’d like to see the data.
The data can take on many different forms--a wire mesh surface of peaks and valleys, bars, pyramids, cylinders, needles or jagged slices stacked side by side like so many boards.
The software pictures the data as if it were mounted on a pedestal, with room for labels on the sides and around the base and nestled inside a box of reference grids that make it easy to see and compare the data values being represented.
When I first saw Perspective at its introduction last spring on “The Computer Show,” it ran at impressive speed on an IBM PC/AT equipped with a Hercules monochrome graphics card. It could only be printed on a dot matrix printer, however, which robbed it of much of the pizazz shown on the screen.
Version 1.1 now being marketed (at the same $295 price) also runs on the IBM and compatible Enhanced Graphics Adapter video boards (but not in color), the Hewlett-Packard Vectra and the AT&T; 6300 series computers. (Compaq owners can only run the program after replacing their Compaq video cards and monitors with Hercules or EGA-compatible equipment.)
It also now lets you print on the Hewlett-Packard and Cordata laser printers but only at the same resolution as the screen display, which means that all the curved and slanted lines have ragged edges.
A higher-priced version, 2.0, at $349, comes with something called “Superprint” that converts the Perspective image into the full resolution of the laser printer, which gets rid of the jaggies and produces very high-quality graphs. Owners of the original version of the software can upgrade to either of the new versions for a small fee.
I have found that Perspective performs at a snappy pace on the basic PC-compatible 8088-based computer that I’ve been running it on, so an AT-style computer isn’t necessary. The program does require a minimum of 512 kilobytes of operating memory but can be used with either floppy disk or hard disk equipped computers.
Perspective, for all its speed and obvious complexity, is very easy to use. Data is entered in a simple spreadsheet form that even those who’ve never used a spreadsheet won’t have trouble negotiating. (You also can pull in existing data from all of the other popular spreadsheet programs.)
Choosing what kind of graph you want is just a matter of highlighting a graphic depiction on a screen full of choices. Customizing the stock images is equally simple, and you can save your custom definition so that future graphs with new data will have the same format.
Finally, if you ever get bored with the 3-D look and long for a plain old-fashioned pie chart, Perspective offers a complete array of traditional two-dimensional business graph formats as well.
Some kinds of data are best shown on a map rather than as a three-dimensional (or two-dimensional) graph--such as a comparison of regional or state-by-state sales of a single product or of a single organization.
Map Master, a $395 map charting program from Decision Resources (25 Sylvan Rd. S., Westport, Conn. 06880, telephone (203) 222-1974) will give you just that sort of chart, either drawn on a pen plotter or produced as a color slide using the Polaroid Palette.
A map can only successfully display a limited amount of information--one variable, such as sales, and only a handful of separate values, such as sales under $100,000; sales $100,000 to $250,000; sales $250,000 to $500,000, and sales of more than $500,000. A separate color would be assigned to represent each of those four sales ranges. Then, if you were mapping sales by state for the United States, the program would draw the nation and color in each state with the appropriate hue according to the sales data you had given it.
Such data can be manually typed into the program or loaded in from any of the popular spreadsheet programs.
Map Master is equally useful for showing locations. You can instruct it to draw a map and then position symbols in the appropriate spots to represent branch offices or retail outlets or what-have-you.
It also allows you to create your own regions within a map, using two separate levels of subdivision--such as all of California plus several Nevada counties--as one region. Once regions are defined, you can “explode” them from the map, causing them to be separated from each other by a distance that you also choose.
Titles, legends and labels are easily added and moved wherever you want them. You also have control over the font style, type size and color of type utilized.
Map Master comes with boundary and statistic files for the United States by state, with population, median age, total effective buying income, total retail sales and buying power index demographic data. It also has Manhattan by ZIP code with 17 kinds of demographic variables.
Virtually any other kind of map boundaries and demographic data you want is available from Decision Resources for prices ranging from $95 to $295 per set.
Computer File welcomes readers’ comments but regrets that the author cannot respond individually to letters. Write to Richard O’Reilly, Computer File, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, Calif. 90053.
