Creating Graphs for the MAP

Creating the Time series graphs

Step 1: Copy time and angle/velocity values from Tracker to Excel.

Remember that if your angles are weird (i.e. they jump from positive to negative values), use the θrot instead of θ (see tutorial on fixing ‘weird angles’ on D2L)

Also, if the number formatting is in Scientific notation, select all cells and change formatting to “General”

You should have 4 columns – time and angle (or velocity/displacement etc.) for each trial

Step 2: Select the first 2 columns, and create a “Scatter Plot” (NOT a Line Plot).

Use the option “Scatter with Straight Lines” to connect with points lines and without markers. Remember you can select a whole column by simply clicking on the column header

Step 3. Now to add the second set of data to the same graph, right click on the existing graph and click on “Select Data…”

Step 4: Click on “Add” under the Legend Entries (Series) button

In the Mac version, this looks slightly different, you will have a “+“ sign at the bottom to add a new series

Step 5: Select the X-values, and Y-values.

In my case, from Columns C and D the data goes from the 3rd row to the 93rd row. This will differ depending on your data.

Also use the Series name to type in which condition this is on the graph. “Atypical”/”Male”/”Expert” etc. This will show up on the legend

Step 6: Once you click OK, we need to rename the first series to a meaningful name as well. So Click on the first series and click “Edit”

Step 7: Now click on Series Name and type in the label for the first 2 columns of data. “Typical”/”Female”/”Novice” etc. You do not have to select the X and Y values again

Step 8: You should now be able to see the chart with 2 lines. Now we need to label the axes. Click on the graph, go to the Design Menu and you should see a “Add Chart Element button”

Under this you can add the axis titles – both horizontal and vertical. This will bring up a text box in which you can type the label with units Time (s) or Knee angle (deg) etc.

Step 9: Add the legend – this is also found under the “Add Chart element button”

Step 10: The last step is to resize the graph as needed and adjust font sizes for axes and axes labels. For finding the font sizes, you should navigate to the “Home” tab on top. Also delete the “Gridlines” by simply clicking on them and clicking delete

Select Font size 16 for axes labels and legend

Font size 12 for the numbers on the axes

Step 11: Adjust the y-axis limits so that the line graph occupies a majority of the graph window.

Right click on axis…Format axis and you should see a window on the right

Example of Final finished graph

Creating Bar graphs

Step 1: Once you have determined a “single” value from the time series (this could be average, maximum, minimum value from the time series data, or even the value at a particular time instant (say knee angle at the time of foot contact”) simply type into a new sheet in row form

Step 2: Select the Data and click on 2-D Column graph

Step 3: Again, add the necessary axes labels as in Step 8 using the “Add Chart Element” button. Delete the “chart title” and “Grid lines” and adjust font sizes etc.

Step 4: Finally, always remember to start the y-axis for a bar graph at zero. Right click on the y-axis and select “Format axis”

Adjust the minimum under “Bounds” to be zero

Example of Final Finished Graph