"Alex Schneider" <ASchneider56@hotmail.com> wrote in message news:e4_C9.4$U9.37428@dca1-nnrp1.news.algx.net... > A speaker at a meeting I attended used "Harvey Balls" to graphically > indicate which of three groups (good, fair, poor) cetain organizations' > performance fell into, with respect to certain attributes. In response to a > question, he mentioned that these originated with someone named Harvey, and > that Consumer Reports uses them extensively to show product ratings. I've > also seen them in PC magazines. > > The concept is, that a ball can be one of four symbols: Solid black, top > half black, bottom half black, all white. I think I've seen them in multiple > colors so that at least 5 ratings are available, perhaps excellent, good, > fair, poor, terrible or something like that. > > Question: does SAS / Graph ( or any other SAS product) offer a Harvey - > ball output? > > Thanks in advance. > > Alex Schneider >

Wasn't Harvy Ball the guy who 'invented' the smiley face ?

Anyway, you can make your own fonts using Proc GFONT. There is great prior work on using GFONT to create dynamic glyphs (That have no 'literal' sense, but rather a 'graphical' sense) for presenting information in quality control or categorical analysis. Apologies to the author if I am mistake, I believe "Visualizing Categorical Data" by Michael Friendly has a section covering the technique.

GFONT is poorly documented in Online Help (F1). GFONT is properly documented in OnlineDoc and SAS/Graph print references.

Here is a stub you can work with:

libname GFONT0 'c:\temp';

data hbfont; length char $1 seg x y 8 lp ptype $1;

char = 'A'; do q1 = 'L', 'P'; do q2 = 'L', 'P'; do q3 = 'L', 'P'; do q4 = 'L', 'P'; lp = q1; link Q1; x=.; y=.; output; lp = q2; link Q2; lp = q3; link Q3; lp = q4; link Q4; char = byte (rank(char)+1); end; end; end; end; stop;

Q1: seg = 1; if lp = 'P' then do; x = 0; y = 0; ptype = 'V'; output; end; x = 1; y = 0; ptype = 'V'; output; x = 0; y = 0; ptype = 'C'; output; x = 0; y = 1; ptype = 'V'; output; return;

Q2: seg = 2; if lp = 'P' then do; x = 0; y = 0; ptype = 'V'; output; end; x = 0; y = 1; ptype = 'V'; output; x = 0; y = 0; ptype = 'C'; output; x = -1; y = 0; ptype = 'V'; output; return;

Q3: seg = 3; if lp = 'P' then do; x = 0; y = 0; ptype = 'V'; output; end; x = -1; y = 0; ptype = 'V'; output; x = 0; y = 0; ptype = 'C'; output; x = 0; y = -1; ptype = 'V'; output; return;

Q4: seg = 4; if lp = 'P' then do; x = 0; y = 0; ptype = 'V'; output; end; x = 0; y = -1; ptype = 'V'; output; x = 0; y = 0; ptype = 'C'; output; x = 1; y = 0; ptype = 'V'; output; return; run;

ods listing close; ods html file='c:\temp\rich.html' gpath='c:\temp';

goptions display;

proc gfont name=HarvBall data=hbfont filled h=5; run;

data anno; style = "HarvBall"; retain xsys ysys '1'; text = ' A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P '; retain x y 50; output; y = 40; text = ' P O N M L K J I H G F E D C B A '; output; run;

proc gslide anno=anno; run; quit;

ods html close;

-- Richard A. DeVenezia http://www.devenezia.com/downloads/sas/macros