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Distances Graph

The distances graph provides a way of visually evaluating how good a seriation is. The computed seriation ordering is represented along both the X and Y axes and each (x,y) point on the graph indicates, by color intensity, the distance from item x to item y. Points (x,y) along the ascending diagonal, where x = y, represent the distance of each item from itself and all have the same distance value (zero) and will all have the same color intensity. Other points (squares) on the graph represent values that will generally be greater than zero and the color intensity will vary with the distance value. Generally speaking, but not necessarily, items that are further away from each other in the seriation would be expected to have greater distances separating them and therefore greater differences in color intensity. This means, starting from a point on the diagonal and then moving either vertically or horizontally away from it, we could expect the distance to tend to increase and, consequently, the color intensity to change more or less uniformly. The result is that a dark (light) diagonal with color getting progressively lighter (darker) would indicate a good seriation. Right clicking anywhere on the graph will bring up a popup menu that gives a range of options for manipulating the graph.

Distances Graph Popup Menu

There are ten items on the distances graph popup menu.

Hide Graph will close the window containing the distances graph.

Show/Hide Diagonal will show (hide) the ascending diagonal of the graph. Distances along the diagonal will be zero.

Hide/Show Legend is a toggle that hide or show the graph legend which identifies the graph colors for the range of distances graphed.

Hide/Show Earlier and Later will include/exclude the virtual Earlier and Later items in the graph.

Invert Colors will invert the gradient of shades reflecting the range of distances from light to dark or vice versa.

Set Colors allows the user to set the foreground and background colors to be used, or to use the default colors.

Set Shades allows the user to set the number of shades to be used in the distances graph.

Set Marker Size allows the user to set the size of the individual markers for each item pair in the distances graph.

Set Axis Labels allows the user to set the axis labels. The default value for the both axes is Computed Order.

Save Graph saves the graph to a separate graphics file. The graph can be saved as a graphics file in a variety of formats (GIF, JPEG, PNG, BMP, TIFF, EMF).