visualize this
March 22, 2012 5:19 PM   Subscribe

How would one visualize 3 parametars on the same graph? I have to visualize my sleeping schedule (time + day) + alternations of my body temperature during the day on the same graph. How could it be done?
posted by leigh1 to Science & Nature (13 answers total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
Plot temperature vs. time on the graph, and represent sleep/wake state by changing the color of the points.
posted by contraption at 5:26 PM on March 22, 2012 [1 favorite]


That's not 3 parameters, that's still 2. Temperature + Time. If you just need a trend over, say, the week, then you can string it all together as time over 7 days.

If you want to compare the days between themselves, then you could have just an x-y graph of the body temperature over time, and then have multiple series (lines), one for each day.

Do you want a further explanation of how to do this in Excel?
posted by lizbunny at 5:27 PM on March 22, 2012 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: Yes, please, lizbunny, thank you:)
posted by leigh1 at 5:29 PM on March 22, 2012


Response by poster: I need to compare the days between themselves (1 month duration).
posted by leigh1 at 5:33 PM on March 22, 2012


Response by poster: Basically, I have a sleep diary that looks like this, and I should somehow include alternations of my body temperature.
posted by leigh1 at 5:39 PM on March 22, 2012


If you want to try many different ways to easily visualize your data, I can suggest using Tableau Software's tools. You can download the demo version of Desktop, or the Public version. It has a drag-and-drop interface and it's easy to try out many ways of visualizing your data. (Caveat: I work at Tableau).
posted by ShooBoo at 9:19 PM on March 22, 2012


What does the temperature data look like? Is it just one data point per day? If so you can do a combination bar and line chart, like the first graph here.
posted by trialex at 11:33 PM on March 22, 2012 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: No, there are 5 points per day.
posted by leigh1 at 6:39 AM on March 23, 2012


What are you plotting about your sleep schedule? Total time slept; some quality measurement like interrupted vs uninterrupted sleep or something else?

Assuming your ultimate goal is to evaluate the effect of something about your sleep schedule on your body temperature, your best bet might be to come up with multiple criterion for sleep quality and and then do a 3D graph where the X axis was your sleep quality score (for whatever criterion you're looking at), the Y axis was time of day and Z was body temperature.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 10:20 AM on March 23, 2012


Response by poster: I'm doing it in order to diagnose my condition - I imagine that changes in body temperature in some way correlates with my changing circadian rhytm.
posted by leigh1 at 10:27 AM on March 23, 2012


I would go bubble chart with play axis - Tableau's demo software will probably do.

On the x-axis - 5 values, one for each temperature data point.
On the y-axis - temperature.
Either for colour or size of the bubbles - awake/asleep.
On the play axis - days.

The visualization you want to see is if the temperature bubbles move up/down over time, also how the awake/asleep toggles change over time. If your sleep moves around over the course of the day over a week or so, you should see sort of a wave ripple across the x-axis with your bubbles. Also if there is a rise/fall in temperature to match as you expect - it should follow the wave.
posted by crazycanuck at 2:02 PM on March 23, 2012


Could you post maybe 20 - 30 lines for people to play around with?
posted by trialex at 8:14 PM on March 24, 2012


Response by poster: It looks like this:
Mon - wake up - 8 am, bedtime: 1 am
Temp: upon waking - 36 C, then every 3 hours - 36.3, 36.5, 36.8, 36.9, 36.3, bedtime - 36.1
posted by leigh1 at 11:57 AM on March 26, 2012


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