Waterfall Plot y vs z axis? (Possible to scale the angled axis?)

Share icon

Documentation on igor's waterfall plots says that the Z axis is on the left side and the Y axis is on the right, angled. This seems backward as a waterfall plot is a bunch of x-y data stacked along a z axis. It doubly doesn't make sense because of the option to scale the "Z axis" in the "newwaterfall" command. (Would make more sense to be able to scale the angled axis.) I realize that it's just nomenclature, but it actually pertains to a question I have.

Does the "wavez" part of the "newwaterfall" command scale the angled axis, or does it scale the vertical axis? For example, if I wanted to scale the angled axis (distance between the x-y plots)non symmetrically to correspond with certain times, could I do that? (So perhaps plot 1 and plot 2 would be "k" distance apart, while plot 2 and 3 would be "j" distance apart.)
I made a simple waterfall plot, then double-clicked the angled ("Y" according to our documentation) to bring up the Modify Axis Appearance dialog. On the Range tab, I set a manual range. The command generated by the dialog uses SetAxis right start, end where start and end are numbers giving the range. Peculiar to use "right" as the name of the axis, but that appears to be how it works.

John Weeks
WaveMetrics, Inc.
support@wavemetrics.com

June 27, 2016 at 10:58 am - Permalink

Ah, I got it now. The waterfall plots are designed to work with x-y data (say a grid of spectra.) I guess that makes sense. Regardless, it allows me to do what I wish.

Thank you.

June 27, 2016 at 11:01 am - Permalink

reepingk wrote:
Ah, I got it now. The waterfall plots are designed to work with x-y data (say a grid of spectra.) I guess that makes sense. Regardless, it allows me to do what I wish. Thank you.
Hello, I am not sure how this answered the question. I would like to make a waterfall plot where the y-axis is time. The time between traces is not consistent. Is there a way to set the value at which each trace will cross the y-axis? For example, the first trace occurred at 1 second. the second at 2 seconds, the third at 5 seconds, and the fourth at 10 seconds. On a related note, I am trying to figure out how to designate column headings as time. Maybe this is best done with layers? I have image intensity vs. vertical location as a function of time, and I am not sure of the best way to organize the data. Any help is appreciated. I am new to Igor. Best Regards.

June 7, 2018 at 08:15 am - Permalink

You can make a wave with the number of elements equal to the number of columns in your data wave. Set the values in that wave to the times for each column. Then the command to make your waterfall plot will be
NewWaterfall datawave vs {*, timewave}
I have used * for the X wave assuming that you have evenly-spaced X values set by the datawave's X scaling. If you have an X wave, replace the * with the name of the X wave. I see that we have added to the confusion by calling that second wave the "z wave" in spite of the fact that we call that axis the "Y axis". I will request a change to the documentation. John Weeks WaveMetrics, Inc. support@wavemetrics.com

June 7, 2018 at 10:40 am - Permalink