General Plot Options

The first tab is used to set the general scales used for the two or three axis.

Figure 5-33. General plot options dialog: the scale tab.

In this tab, you can also set the number of ticks used for each axis. This can be done in two ways: you can set the number of labels which are used for the whole scale. Whatever the number you enter, SciDAVis will use a value which leads to a pretty plot: for example, if you enter 7 ticks for a 0..100 scale, SciDAVis will use 10 major ticks from 10 to 10. If you want to fix non classical values, you can select the step method.

The grid tab is used to draw grid lines on the plot. The frequency of the lines are related to the number of label and major ticks set with the Scale tab.

Figure 5-34. General plot options dialog: the grid tab.

The third tab is used to modify the setting of the different axis. You must select the axis that must be customized in the right window. The label of the axis can be modified in the title window, see the text options dialog section for more details.

Figure 5-35. General plot options dialog: the axis tab.

The General settings tab is used to customize the global aspect of the plot. The canvas is the area defined by the axis, you can draw a box around this canvas and define a background color for this canvas. The background area is the global drawing area, you can also define a color border and a background color for this area. The margin parameter controls the distance between the drawing area limit and the canvas. If you want to modify the margin between the window limits and the drawing area, you must modify the layer parameters (manualy with the mouse or with the arrange layers dialog.

Figure 5-36. General plot options dialog: General settings.

The parameters in the Axes group allow to modify the linestyle of the axes and of the ticks.