Choosing an attractive linear scale for a graph's Y Axis

A long time ago I have written a graph module that covered this nicely. Digging in the grey mass gets the following:

• Determine lower and upper bound of the data. (Beware of the special case where lower bound = upper bound!
• Divide range into the required amount of ticks.
• Round the tick range up into nice amounts.
• Adjust the lower and upper bound accordingly.

Lets take your example:

15, 234, 140, 65, 90 with 10 ticks

1. lower bound = 15
2. upper bound = 234
3. range = 234-15 = 219
4. tick range = 21.9. This should be 25.0
5. new lower bound = 25 * round(15/25) = 0
6. new upper bound = 25 * round(1+235/25) = 250

So the range = 0,25,50,...,225,250

You can get the nice tick range with the following steps:

1. divide by 10^x such that the result lies between 0.1 and 1.0 (including 0.1 excluding 1).
2. translate accordingly:
   • 0.1 -> 0.1
   • <= 0.2 -> 0.2
   • <= 0.25 -> 0.25
   • <= 0.3 -> 0.3
   • <= 0.4 -> 0.4
   • <= 0.5 -> 0.5
   • <= 0.6 -> 0.6
   • <= 0.7 -> 0.7
   • <= 0.75 -> 0.75
   • <= 0.8 -> 0.8
   • <= 0.9 -> 0.9
   • <= 1.0 -> 1.0
3. multiply by 10^x.

In this case, 21.9 is divided by 10^2 to get 0.219. This is <= 0.25 so we now have 0.25. Multiplied by 10^2 this gives 25.

Lets take a look at the same example with 8 ticks:

15, 234, 140, 65, 90 with 8 ticks

1. lower bound = 15
2. upper bound = 234
3. range = 234-15 = 219
4. tick range = 27.375
   1. Divide by 10^2 for 0.27375, translates to 0.3, which gives (multiplied by 10^2) 30.
5. new lower bound = 30 * round(15/30) = 0
6. new upper bound = 30 * round(1+235/30) = 240

Which give the result you requested ;-).

------ Added by KD ------

Here's code that achieves this algorithm without using lookup tables, etc...:

double range = ...;
int tickCount = ...;
double unroundedTickSize = range/(tickCount-1);
double x = Math.ceil(Math.log10(unroundedTickSize)-1);
double pow10x = Math.pow(10, x);
double roundedTickRange = Math.ceil(unroundedTickSize / pow10x) * pow10x;
return roundedTickRange;

Generally speaking, the number of ticks includes the bottom tick, so the actual y-axis segments are one less than the number of ticks.

Sounds like the caller doesn't tell you the ranges it wants.

So you are free to changed the end points until you get it nicely divisible by your label count.

Let's define "nice". I would call nice if the labels are off by:

1. 2^n, for some integer n. eg. ..., .25, .5, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, ...
2. 10^n, for some integer n. eg. ..., .01, .1, 1, 10, 100
3. n/5 == 0, for some positive integer n, eg, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, ...
4. n/2 == 0, for some positive integer n, eg, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, ...

Find the max and min of your data series. Let's call these points:

min_point and max_point.

Now all you need to do is find is 3 values:

- start_label, where start_label < min_point and start_label is an integer
- end_label, where end_label > max_point and end_label is an integer
- label_offset, where label_offset is "nice"

that fit the equation:

(end_label - start_label)/label_offset == label_count

There are probably many solutions, so just pick one. Most of the time I bet you can set

start_label to 0

so just try different integer

end_label

until the offset is "nice"

Converted this answer as Swift 4

extension Int {

    static func makeYaxis(yMin: Int, yMax: Int, ticks: Int = 10) -> [Int] {
        var yMin = yMin
        var yMax = yMax
        var ticks = ticks
        // This routine creates the Y axis values for a graph.
        //
        // Calculate Min amd Max graphical labels and graph
        // increments.  The number of ticks defaults to
        // 10 which is the SUGGESTED value.  Any tick value
        // entered is used as a suggested value which is
        // adjusted to be a 'pretty' value.
        //
        // Output will be an array of the Y axis values that
        // encompass the Y values.
        var result = [Int]()
        // If yMin and yMax are identical, then
        // adjust the yMin and yMax values to actually
        // make a graph. Also avoids division by zero errors.
        if yMin == yMax {
            yMin -= ticks   // some small value
            yMax += ticks   // some small value
        }
        // Determine Range
        let range = yMax - yMin
        // Adjust ticks if needed
        if ticks < 2 { ticks = 2 }
        else if ticks > 2 { ticks -= 2 }

        // Get raw step value
        let tempStep: CGFloat = CGFloat(range) / CGFloat(ticks)
        // Calculate pretty step value
        let mag = floor(log10(tempStep))
        let magPow = pow(10,mag)
        let magMsd = Int(tempStep / magPow + 0.5)
        let stepSize = magMsd * Int(magPow)

        // build Y label array.
        // Lower and upper bounds calculations
        let lb = stepSize * Int(yMin/stepSize)
        let ub = stepSize * Int(ceil(CGFloat(yMax)/CGFloat(stepSize)))
        // Build array
        var val = lb
        while true {
            result.append(val)
            val += stepSize
            if val > ub { break }
        }
        return result
    }

}

The above algorithms do not take into consideration the case when the range between min and max value is too small. And what if these values are a lot higher than zero? Then, we have the possibility to start the y-axis with a value higher than zero. Also, in order to avoid our line to be entirely on the upper or the down side of the graph, we have to give it some "air to breathe".

To cover those cases I wrote (on PHP) the above code:

function calculateStartingPoint($min, $ticks, $times, $scale) {

    $starting_point = $min - floor((($ticks - $times) * $scale)/2);

    if ($starting_point < 0) {
        $starting_point = 0;
    } else {
        $starting_point = floor($starting_point / $scale) * $scale;
        $starting_point = ceil($starting_point / $scale) * $scale;
        $starting_point = round($starting_point / $scale) * $scale;
    }
    return $starting_point;
}

function calculateYaxis($min, $max, $ticks = 7)
{
    print "Min = " . $min . "\n";
    print "Max = " . $max . "\n";

    $range = $max - $min;
    $step = floor($range/$ticks);
    print "First step is " . $step . "\n";
    $available_steps = array(5, 10, 20, 25, 30, 40, 50, 100, 150, 200, 300, 400, 500);
    $distance = 1000;
    $scale = 0;

    foreach ($available_steps as $i) {
        if (($i - $step < $distance) && ($i - $step > 0)) {
            $distance = $i - $step;
            $scale = $i;
        }
    }

    print "Final scale step is " . $scale . "\n";

    $times = floor($range/$scale);
    print "range/scale = " . $times . "\n";

    print "floor(times/2) = " . floor($times/2) . "\n";

    $starting_point = calculateStartingPoint($min, $ticks, $times, $scale);

    if ($starting_point + ($ticks * $scale) < $max) {
        $ticks += 1;
    }

    print "starting_point = " . $starting_point . "\n";

    // result calculation
    $result = [];
    for ($x = 0; $x <= $ticks; $x++) {
        $result[] = $starting_point + ($x * $scale);
    }
    return $result;
}

For anyone who need this in ES5 Javascript, been wrestling a bit, but here it is:

var min=52;
var max=173;
var actualHeight=500; // 500 pixels high graph

var tickCount =Math.round(actualHeight/100); 
// we want lines about every 100 pixels.

if(tickCount <3) tickCount =3; 
var range=Math.abs(max-min);
var unroundedTickSize = range/(tickCount-1);
var x = Math.ceil(Math.log10(unroundedTickSize)-1);
var pow10x = Math.pow(10, x);
var roundedTickRange = Math.ceil(unroundedTickSize / pow10x) * pow10x;
var min_rounded=roundedTickRange * Math.floor(min/roundedTickRange);
var max_rounded= roundedTickRange * Math.ceil(max/roundedTickRange);
var nr=tickCount;
var str="";
for(var x=min_rounded;x<=max_rounded;x+=roundedTickRange)
{
    str+=x+", ";
}
console.log("nice Y axis "+str);    

Based on the excellent answer by Toon Krijtje.

This solution is based on a Java example I found.

const niceScale = ( minPoint, maxPoint, maxTicks) => {
    const niceNum = ( localRange,  round) => {
        var exponent,fraction,niceFraction;
        exponent = Math.floor(Math.log10(localRange));
        fraction = localRange / Math.pow(10, exponent);
        if (round) {
            if (fraction < 1.5) niceFraction = 1;
            else if (fraction < 3) niceFraction = 2;
            else if (fraction < 7) niceFraction = 5;
            else niceFraction = 10;
        } else {
            if (fraction <= 1) niceFraction = 1;
            else if (fraction <= 2) niceFraction = 2;
            else if (fraction <= 5) niceFraction = 5;
            else niceFraction = 10;
        }
        return niceFraction * Math.pow(10, exponent);
    }
    const result = [];
    const range = niceNum(maxPoint - minPoint, false);
    const stepSize = niceNum(range / (maxTicks - 1), true);
    const lBound = Math.floor(minPoint / stepSize) * stepSize;
    const uBound = Math.ceil(maxPoint / stepSize) * stepSize;
    for(let i=lBound;i<=uBound;i+=stepSize) result.push(i);
    return result;
};
console.log(niceScale(15,234,6));
// > [0, 100, 200, 300]

A demo of accepted answer

function tickEvery(range, ticks) {
  return Math.ceil((range / ticks) / Math.pow(10, Math.ceil(Math.log10(range / ticks) - 1))) * Math.pow(10, Math.ceil(Math.log10(range / ticks) - 1));
}

function update() {
  const range = document.querySelector("#range").value;
  const ticks = document.querySelector("#ticks").value;
  const result = tickEvery(range, ticks);
  document.querySelector("#result").textContent = `With range ${range} and ${ticks} ticks, tick every ${result} for a total of ${Math.ceil(range / result)} ticks at ${new Array(Math.ceil(range / result)).fill(0).map((v, n) => Math.round(n * result)).join(", ")}`;
}

update();

<input id="range" min="1" max="10000" oninput="update()" style="width:100%" type="range" value="5000" width="40" />
<br/>
<input id="ticks" min="1" max="20" oninput="update()" type="range" style="width:100%" value="10" />
<p id="result" style="font-family:sans-serif"></p>