Open AccessSpeaking Stata: Front-and-back plots to ease spaghetti and paella problems
Author(s) -
Nicholas J. Cox
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
the stata journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.637
H-Index - 76
eISSN - 1536-8734
pISSN - 1536-867X
DOI - 10.1177/1536867x211025838
Subject(s) - graphics , focus (optics) , front (military) , computer science , mathematics , computer graphics (images) , engineering , physics , optics , mechanical engineering
The spaghetti problem arises in graphics when multiple time series or other functional traces show mostly a tangled mess. The related paella problem (often experienced but not usually named as such) arises for multiple patterns combined in scatterplots. This column is a sequel to those in Stata Journal 10: 670–681 (2010) and 19: 989–1008 (2019). The focus is on what are here called front-and-back plots, in which each subset of data is shown separately with the other subsets as backdrop. The strategy is thus a hybrid of two more common strategies, showing each subset separately (juxtaposing) and showing subsets together (superimposing). A new command, fabplot, is introduced and used in examples.