Visualize — charts, curves and sensitivity from the numbers you pick

The three cards on the left are input cards for transport, lodging and food. The pie chart on the right was made by selecting those three, pressing "Visualize" and choosing the "Share (pie)" candidate. Changing an amount changes the shares with it. With Food set to 500, the shares become Transport 30%, Lodging 20% and Food 50%.

In a frame embedded in a page like this one, selecting cards does not bring up the "Visualize" button. "Visualize" can be tried after opening the board with "Open in CalcAnyway".

Select cards, then press "Visualize"

"Visualize" makes a chart or a similar card from the numbers on the cards you select. The button appears next to the selection once at least one card showing a number is selected.

1. Clicking a card near its number (#1 and so on) selects that card.
2. Clicking near the number of another card while holding Shift adds it to the selection. Ctrl (⌘ on a Mac) does the same.
3. Pressing "Visualize" lines up the candidates. Each one is drawn with the selected numbers themselves.
4. Pressing a candidate creates that card just to the right of the selection.

The new card is connected to the selected cards, so it changes when their numbers change. One Undo (Ctrl+Z) removes it together with its connections. "Progress" is the one candidate that makes two cards — a "Progress %" calculation and a gauge — and one Undo removes both.

A click without Shift or Ctrl goes back to selecting just that one card. Dragging across an empty part of the canvas with the mouse selects every card inside the box. On a phone or tablet, each tap adds a card to the selection, and tapping it again removes it.

Above the candidates, "Uses:" lists the selected cards with numbers. The new card uses the numbers in that order: the order you picked them in if you selected them one by one. If you boxed them, the order follows their positions — left to right when they spread sideways, top to bottom when they are stacked.

The candidates depend on how many cards and which numbers

Up to four chart candidates are shown. They depend on how many cards are selected and on whether the numbers are positive or negative; candidates that do not fit are left out. Boxing the three cards of Board 1, for example, gives "Compare bars", "Share (pie)", "Profile shape" and "Sum up".

• Selecting three or more cards one by one adds "See the trend", a line chart in the order picked. Another candidate drops out to make room.
• When the two selected values are equal, "Progress" is not offered and "Sum up" comes last.
• Selecting one input card that has two or more values saved with "Record" adds "Recorded trend" at the front.
• "Vs. target" starts as a gauge with a target of 100. "Progress" treats the larger of the two values as the goal and the smaller as the current value.

Sometimes one of the selected cards is calculated from other selected cards, such as a total. "Sum up", "Share (pie)" and "Rise & fall" then leave that card out, and the names of the cards they use appear under the candidate.

Chart cards

"Compare bars", "Share (pie)", "See the trend" and "Distribution (box)" all create a chart card. "Share of the cost" on Board 1 is one.

• The menu at the top of the card switches the type between "Bar", "Pie", "Line", "Histogram" and "Box plot". It is not shown in an embedded frame.
• The values of the connected cards appear in the order they were connected. A connected list card contributes one value per row.
• "Histogram" sorts the values into ranges of equal width and draws the count in each range as a bar. The width is picked automatically from round numbers such as 1, 2 and 5, or 10, 20 and 50.
• "Pie" cannot show negative values. The card then says that a bar chart can.

A histogram is not among the "Visualize" candidates. Selecting a list card, choosing "Compare bars" and switching the type to "Histogram" gives one.

"What if I move it?" draws a curve

"What if I move it? (sweep)" is a card that moves one input across a range and draws how the result changes as a curve. Board 2 is an event, with a ticket price and a balance.

The four cards on the left are inputs. "People" at the top right is an assumption: 100 people at a ticket price of 30, and 2 fewer for every 1 added to the price. "Balance" is (Ticket − Food) × People − Venue, which here is (30 − 10) × 100 − 1,200 = 800. The card at the bottom right is the "What if I move it?" card.

Placing the card and connecting a result

1. Pressing the "Add a card" button at the top left opens the list of cards.
2. Pressing "Analysis & explanation" shows "What if I move it? (sweep)".
3. Pressing "What if I move it? (sweep)" places the card.
4. Dragging the ○ of the result card ("Balance" on Board 2) onto the new card connects them.

Until a result is connected, the card says "Connect one result card".

The input to move, the range and the number of points

The "Move" menu lists the input cards the result is calculated from, however many steps back. On Board 2 these are Ticket, Food, Venue and People lost per +1. "People lost per +1" is included because "People" uses it. A calculation card that holds only a number is listed as an input too.

The two fields below it are the lower and upper ends of the range. The starting range depends on the input being moved:

• a slider input — from the slider's minimum to its maximum
• any other input with a positive value — from 0 to twice the value (0 to 60 on Board 2)
• a negative value — from twice the value up to 0
• a value of 0 — from 0 to 10

The menu on the right is the number of points: "20 pts", "40 pts" or "80 pts". The range is divided into that many steps and the result is calculated at each. More points make a finer curve.

"Draw", and the values it reads off

Pressing "Draw" draws the curve. On Board 2 it shows the balance as the ticket price moves from 0 to 60.

• The line at the top shows the current ticket price and balance. The black dot on the curve marks where they are now.
• When the curve has a peak, a green triangle marks it and the card reads "Max 1,250 (at 45)": at a ticket price of 45 the balance reaches its largest value, 1,250. A valley gets a red triangle and a "Min" reading.
• Where the curve crosses 0, an orange circle appears. On Board 2 the card reads "Reaches 0 at: 20". Up to three crossings are listed.

"Max" and "Min" appear only for a peak or a valley inside the range. When the largest or smallest value is at an end of the range, they are not shown.

After changing the range or the points, draw again

Changing the upper end to 100 clears the curve, and the card asks for "Draw" again. Pressing "Draw" then gives the curve from 0 to 100, reading "Reaches 0 at: 20, 70". A price set too high also makes the balance negative, because too few people come.

Changing the input in "Move" or the number of points clears the curve in the same way. "Draw" redraws it with the new settings.

Changing numbers after drawing

Changing the input that is being moved only moves the black dot along the curve; the curve is not redrawn. With Ticket set to 45 on Board 2, the dot sits on the peak, with 70 people and a balance of 1,250.

Changing any other input redraws the curve automatically. With Venue set to 650 on Board 2, the readings become "Max 1,800 (at 45)" and "Reaches 0 at: 15, 75".

If redrawing keeps taking a long time, the card stops redrawing on its own. The curve then fades, and the card asks for "Draw" again. The curve is also not drawn yet when a board is opened, including a saved board or a shared link; "Draw" brings it up.

"Sensitivity" compares which input matters most

"Sensitivity" is a card that moves each input of a result a little, one at a time, and lines up how much the result changes as bars. Board 3 is the same event balance as Board 2, with the number of people as an input here.

It is placed and connected like the "What if I move it?" card: "Sensitivity" is under "Analysis & explanation" in "Add a card", and dragging the result card's ○ onto it connects them. The "±" menu at the bottom is the step: "1%", "5%", "10%", "20%" or "50%".

Pressing "Compute" draws the bars. On Board 3 they come in this order:

• Ticket — moving 30 by 10% changes the balance by 300
• People — moving 100 by 10% changes it by 200
• Venue — moving 1,200 by 10% changes it by 120
• Food — moving 10 by 10% changes it by 100

A green bar shows the change when the input goes up, a red bar when it goes down. A bar to the right means the result rises; to the left, it falls. Raising Venue or Food lowers the balance, so their green bars point left.

The bars are sorted by the size of the change, up to eight of them. While one input moves, the others keep their values. An input whose value is 0 is moved by ±1. The line at the top shows the current result and the step. Names to the left of the bars show up to seven characters; longer names are cut short with "…".

After changing numbers, press "Compute" again

The bars are calculated from the values at the moment "Compute" was pressed. Changing an input later does not recalculate them. The old bars stay, and the card asks for "Compute" again.

Setting Venue to 1,500 on Board 3 brings up that note. Pressing "Compute" then shows the current balance as 500 at the top, and the Venue bar becomes 150.

Changing the "±" step clears the bars. "Compute" lines them up again with the new step. At 20%, they are Ticket 600, People 400, Venue 300 and Food 200, each twice the 10% value.

"Solve for target" can appear among the candidates

When exactly two cards are selected, one an input and the other calculated from it, "Solve for target" is added at the end of the "Visualize" candidates. On Board 2 that happens with Ticket and Balance selected.

It is not a chart: it fixes the result and works out the input backwards. When it appears and how it works are covered under "Work backwards from the answer" in the usage guide.

Articles that use this

• Percentage change — a "What if I move it?" card draws the rise needed to get back as the fall changes.
• Mean and median — a histogram chart shows how the scores in a list are spread.

When it does not work

• The "Visualize" button does not appear — it is not offered in a frame embedded in a page; "Open in CalcAnyway" opens a view where it is. It also stays hidden when the selection has no card showing a number, such as a chart card or a card with an error.
• Selecting a second card drops the first — with a mouse, a click without Shift or Ctrl selects just that card. Clicking while holding Shift adds to the selection.
• "Share (pie)" is not offered — it is offered for three or more cards or for a list card, and left out when a selected number is negative or the values add up to 0.
• The card says "No movable input cards upstream" — the connected result does not use any input card or any calculation card holding only a number. It helps to check which cards the result is calculated from.
• The curve has a peak but no "Max" — this happens when the two points on either side of the peak have exactly the same value. On Board 2, setting the upper end to 80 and pressing "Draw" with 40 points does this. With "80 pts" and "Draw", the card reads "Max 1,800 (at 45)".
• The curve is faded, or the bars are old — the numbers changed after drawing or computing. Pressing "Draw" or "Compute" brings them up to date.

Read next — Keep a total and split it How to move one number while the total stays the same, with the difference spread over the other cards.

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