An Overview of Citrin 2 Features

Summary

Citrin is a modern, interactive, Mac OS X Universal graphing application, providing:

  • A rich variety of graph types with numerous styles of data representation
  • Real-time, two-way interaction with data, enabling simultaneous data visualization and graphing from multiple worksheets
  • Exploratory tools such as data brushing and X-zooming
  • Native worksheets, a formula editor, diverse importers, and utilities for quality control of numeric data
  • Curve fitting with pre-defined regression functions or user-defined non-linear regression (with a library of functions and an interactive UI)
  • Ability to apply error bars to scatter, line, column, bar, and area charts, and to apply error regions to ternary scatter plots
  • Support for exporting PDF (vector drawings) and bit images (BMP, JPEG, TIFF, Photoshop, bitmap PICT, PNG, SGI, TGA, etc.)
  • Flexible customizing tools, Unicode support, presentation and publication quality graphics, and more

System Requirements

  • Mac OS 10.4.11, Leopard, or Snow Leopard
  • Intel- or Power PC-based Mac
  • A color monitor with a minimum resolution of 1024 x 768

More Information

Pipeline Architecture

Citrin benefits from the pipeline architecture of Aabel (the Gigawiz flagship product), allowing real-time, two-way interaction between graphic viewers and their source worksheets, and between plotted data displayed on the same or on different viewers. This unique design has many advantages:

  • You can perform graphing from multiple Citrin worksheets, without a need to merge the data into a single worksheet.
  • You can have real-time interaction with data, e.g., change variables, change chart types, etc., all from within a single interface, and the results will be dynamically updated.
  • Saved graphic viewer files are not static graphic files. They are hot-linked to the data sources used to create the chart(s). If you make changes to source worksheets, the modifications will be dynamically updated on all charts using the data.

QuickTime Movie: Citrin
Interactivity (00.00.38)

Explore Your Data Using Interactive Tools

Interactive Visualization and Graph Types

Features of Graphic Viewer

The graphic viewer is the Citrin interface for data visualization & charting and for displaying the graphical results of statistical analysis.

X-Y Scatter Charts

When using scatter plots, you can generate subsets of data from selected data points, and the selections can be regular or irregular.

Ternary Charts

Creating a ternary chart involves transforming three variables to ratios of three dependent proportions that are plotted in a 2-D simplex. Citrin ternary graphs provide ternary zooming support.

Polar Charts

Polar graphs can be used to display non-directional data series against variation in angles. The values of the non-directional data will be plotted proportional to the radius of the polar chart. These graphs can be plotted using geographical or geometrical angles.

Heatmaps

Basic heatmaps display a worksheet matrix layout using a color scale.

Waterfall Charts

Waterfall charts are ideal for comparing variations between multiple data sets that are obtained under similar conditions.

Bubble Charts

Citrin provides diverse bubble chart types, round and square bubble markers, and several options for scaling the size of bubble markers.

Spider Charts

Spider charts, also known as radar charts, plot variations in multiple data series that represent the same factors. The multiple variables are plotted along the chart spokes (axes) from the center of the chart. Lines connect the spokes at the position of each data object, forming a spiral around the center. Each spoke represents a variable.

Contour Charts

Citrin provides the following contouring options:

Column and Bar Charts

Citrin provides the following column and bar charts:

Area Charts

Citrin provides the following area charts:

Combination Charts (Column-Line, Bar-Line, Area-Line)

These charts combine a column and a line graph, a bar and a line graph, or an area and a line graph.

Diagrams of Multiple, Independent Value-Axes Column, Bar or Area Graphs

These diagrams are useful for comparing the changes in values of multiple variables across a given category axis and relative to each other. These diagrams provide 16 styles of data representation, plus automatic data processing of the value axes.

Line Charts

Line charts can be used to display trends of values of data series or for comparing mean values of data series or groups of data, etc.

High-Low, (Open)-High-Low-Close, and Range Charts

Some of these charts require one categorical variable; others require continuous data for both X and Y axes.

Pie Charts and X-Y Scatter Pie

A pie chart displays the contribution of parts to a whole.

Vector Charts

These charts are designed to display directional vectors, e.g., direction and/or speed of wind, etc. Angles should be in degrees, and can be any number (Citrin uses angle modulus 360).

Citrin Statistical Charts

Visit the links below for information about statistical charts:

Pre-Defined and User-Defined Curve Fitting

Pre-Defined Regression

Cubic Spline interpolation

User-Defined Non-Linear Regression

Applying Error Bars

Adding error bars to charts allows a graphical display of the statistical probability of errors, the experimental and analytical errors, etc.

The Error Bars Defined for Individual Variables

New: Ternary Error Regions:

Graphic Export Formats

Format for exporting graphics

For information regarding export resolution and for viewing the Citrin PDF graphics in PowerPoint 2008 and Keynote, click here.

Formats for copying graphics/ drag & drop

Features of Citrin Worksheets

Worksheets are Citrin's data storage mechanism, and provide numerous data management functions and utilities. They also act as dynamic data sources for data analysis and visualization.

For more details about Citrin worksheet features, see Citrin Worksheets, Data Importers, and Utilities.

Supported Data Import Formats


Supported Variable Types


Worksheet Utilities


The Worksheet New Data Management Features


The Worksheet Symbol and Color Palettes


The Worksheet Formula Editor

Citrin Viewer Text and Table Editors

Citrin table and text editors support Unicode.

The Table Editor

  • The table editor is provided for creating and editing tables

The Text Line Editor

  • The text line editor allows adding titles or rotated text line to graphs

Unicode Support

Citrin supports Unicode for storing data in worksheets, for graphing data, and for creating tables and text lines.

  • Ranking of categorical data is based on the US English writing system to ensure consistency independent of the machine language settings.

Viewer User-Defined Color Themes

Graphic Sublayers Manager

Each chart pane or other graphic object you create is placed in a transparent sublayer of the current viewer page and its specifications are displayed in the graphic sublayers palette. The sublayers palette allows:

Color Management and Interactive Color Palette Editor

Customizing Tools for Data Representation

Citrin Symbols and Unicode Glyphs

Colored symbols (markers) are used to represent data in many chart types. Markers representing data can be pre-defined or inherited from the source worksheet(s). The uniqueness of markers is defined by their symbols, color, and size. Citrin provides two types of symbol palettes:


High Quality Quartz Patterns for Black & White Publications

Many 2-D graph types use fill attributes to identify different data series or data groups (e.g., color or pattern properties of columns, bars, areas, etc.). Due to high cost of color publications, many users prefer to use B & W patterns (when possible) for publication purposes.

  • Citrin provides numerous Quartz patterns, which are vector/stencil drawings, designed for use with high quality Quartz graphic system and PDF.
  • Despite that the design of these patterns has been for assisting the users in generating high quality 2-D graphics for B & W publications, they can be used in combination with any color.

    To view an example of use of patterns in B & W, and to see the diversity of patterns provided, click here.


Customizing Chart Axis Attributes

Numerous chart-axis customizing tools are provided for different chart categories. Features include (but are not limited to):

  • Choice of linear or logarithmic scale, forward or reverse (when applicable)
  • Editing abilities to choose title proxy names
  • Applying subscript, superscript, or Greek glyphs to axis titles
  • Control of the axis line thickness, color, length and type of major and minor grids
  • Control of the axis range and steps (when applicable)
  • Numeric label display format settings (fixed or scientific format, decimal places, use of leading zero, use of a prefix or suffix, etc.)
  • Control of axis text properties and the position of labels (e.g., font properties, color, etc.)
  • Controls for customizing axis attributes of plot types that do not share the common axis properties of 2-D charts (e.g., chart types such as spider, polar, etc.)

Displaying Object and Value Labels on Charts

  • You can optionally display object or value labels on many Citrin charts.
  • Value labels can display a 3rd dimension on an X-Y chart, a 4th dimension on a ternary chart, and a 5th dimension on a bubble chart.
  • The labels can be customized with frames and backdrop colors, or different font properties.

Customizing Chart Legends and Legend Entries

Legends provide explanation for data represented by graphical information.

Legend entries representing data groups or data series

  • The legend keys (markers, lines, color or pattern fill)
  • The legend text items (names of the data groups or series associated with the legend keys)
  • Legend entries editor allows modifying:

    • Symbol, color, and size of markers representing data objects or data series
    • Thickness, type, and color of lines representing data series
    • Regression lines, and confidence belt fill and line attributes
    • Fill attributes representing data series.

Legend entries representing data ranges

  • Color scale legends are used in 2-D and ternary contours, bubble charts, waterfall pseudo-surface, and heatmaps.
  • . The editor for this legend type allows changing font attributes of the legend title, defining the legend labels font and display format attributes, binning the color range, etc.

Legend font and background properties

  • The legend font size and style can be changed using the Text menu or shortcuts.
  • Chart legends have a transparent background by default. You can optionally add a colored background to any legend type.

Managing Transparency

  • The transparency tab in the Graphics Sublayers Manager provides separate controls for modifying transparency of fills, lines, and markers of 2-D graphs.

Drawing Lines and Geometric Shapes

Drawing tools include:

  • Line tools for drawing a straight line, or polygons/polylines
  • Shape tools for drawing a rectangle, rounded rectangle, circle or ellipse.
  • For these lines and geometrical shapes, you can change the color of line or fill, apply patterns to fill, and change transparency of the fill.

User-Defined Templates

  • Templates can be created for each chart category and can include properties that do not have any data-dependency.
  • Examples of attributes that can be saved as templates are chart axis lines (thickness and color), axis label and title fonts (font type, size, color), markers, lines, fill attributes used for representing data series (if you are not using variable hot-linked properties).
  • A saved template can be loaded into any viewer. The properties defined for any chart in the template will override the corresponding document attributes for the given chart(s).

Tutorial Style User Guide Documentation

The Citrin user guide is PDF-based and is designed to provide:

  • An on-screen manual with high-resolution graphics, flexible navigation controls, and complete hot linked cross-referencing throughout the user guide that includes over 200 illustrations
  • High quality print output
  • Step-by-step guide to using the diverse features and capabilities of the application