Topic: Very large or very small numbers can't be plotted

Greetings Ivan,

I seem to have hit a limit in the scale ranges. Attached is a small example file showing two point series.

One holds large numbers (1E+18), the other holds small numbers (1E-18). Whether you show one or both these series on the graph, there's no way to get axes that show them.

A) If I go in the Axes menu and put the appropriate min/max (i.e. from 1E17 to 1E19), there's a popup saying :
"You have reached the minimum range of zoom"

B) If I instead select Zoom >> Fit All, red text at the bottom of the window says the same error : "You have reached the minimum range of zoom"

C) same goes for small numbers.

It's annoying because I get to work with both small and large numbers... Would it simply be a matter of using a larger float size (32 or 64bits) for axes variables?

Thanks!
GraphUser3546

Post's attachments

Attachment icon Minimal Working Example.grf 1.03 kb, 623 downloads since 2014-11-10 

Re: Very large or very small numbers can't be plotted

Just wanted to say i have the same issue. I think graph looks really nice and simple to make graphs in, but the max range of values make it impossible to use on the data i have.

I'm working with values raging from 6.190E+05 to  8.098333E+172 and I'm only in the lower value end of my data samples

Re: Very large or very small numbers can't be plotted

Well, my best suggestion is to avoid very large and very small numbers. It is usually possible to work around this by scaling the numbers. So if you have numbers in the range 1E17 to 1E19, you can divide all you numbers by 1E17 so they instead are in the range 1 to 100.

Re: Very large or very small numbers can't be plotted

Greetings Ivan,

Is this something you plan on fixing, or is the work-around good enough for your thinking?

I must say the work-around you suggested yields unclear graphs since I have to use weird units like fW (femtoWatt) and it gets pointed at when I show my graphs to colleagues.

I know I could add text over labels, but for showing to colleagues, I won't take the time. I do when I show graphs to outsiders but it is annoying.

Thanks!
GraphUser3546

Re: Very large or very small numbers can't be plotted

I hope to improve this, but it will not be easy as it basically is a limitation in the processor. I am also having trouble finding the time, but one day I will get it fixed.