How To Plot X/Y Coordinate Values on a Scatter Chart

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
				

The second data series is made up of the following 10 data points:

   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
				

To fill the chart's data grid, you can use the Row and Column properties to specify a cell in the grid and then use the Data property to plot that coordinate:

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

The next section shows how to create a sample project that demonstrates plotting X/Y coordinate data on a scatter chart.

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.