3D Pie Charts
by Jon Peltier
Friday, November 21st, 2008
Peltier Technical Services, Inc., Copyright © 2012.
Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
Federico gives us this excellent example of a 3D pie chart, thanks to GraphJam.
The only way I can think of to improve this chart is to explode the segments.
Oh yeah, and animate it. I’ve done just that in this zipped workbook.
GraphJam ought to be banned. After I came across the pie chart at the top of the page (I forget where I first saw it, but thanks somebody!), my daughter and I wasted spent an hour laughing at other graphs.
Before you think I’m completely against pie charts altogether, let me say that there are some pie charts, even in 3D and exploded varieties, which are acceptable and even welcome. This one came to me thanks to Nathan of Flowing Data. It is actually a commercial product by Mary and Matt.
I feel a Homer moment coming on.
Related Posts:
- OT Friday: GraphJam
- OT: Charting to Achieve Fitness Goals
- Extra Distortion in a Pie Chart
- Exploded Pie Chart Replacement
- Why Do We Love Pie Charts?
- Paper Pie Charts?
Posted: Friday, November 21st, 2008 under Amusement.
Comments: 11
Comments
Comment from Bob Gannon
Time: Friday, November 21, 2008, 3:26 pm
A different perspective can be an improvement. If you added an adjacent panel with a nice spider chart of the same data everything would be crystal clear.
Comment from Jon Peltier
Time: Friday, November 21, 2008, 4:43 pm
Bob -
How would that help? Excel doesn’t even have a 3D Radar Chart Type!
Pingback from 5 visualizations to inspire you [Nov 21] | Pointy Haired Dilbert – Chandoo.org
Time: Friday, November 21, 2008, 6:56 pm
[...] We all know that 3D pies are not a very good way to express your story. I guess this one is an exception we all are happy to make [via PTS Blog] [...]
Comment from Bob Gannon
Time: Friday, November 21, 2008, 7:01 pm
Just being sarcastic. I think the only thing worse than pie charts are spider charts.
Comment from Jon Peltier
Time: Friday, November 21, 2008, 8:23 pm
Bob -
So was I. I’m not a big fan of either type, though I guess each has a place. At a wobbly table next to the kitchen.
Comment from Sandi Mays
Time: Friday, November 21, 2008, 8:56 pm
I am not a pie charts fan. Which is kind of surprising, because I really do love pie. Why waste my time and a sheet of paper with that? Showing the data in table would be a better bet.
I once had someone ask me to teach them to animate a pie chart. I refused on principal :)
Comment from Jon Peltier
Time: Friday, November 21, 2008, 10:18 pm
Chandoo -
Your post, which referenced this one, inspired me in a way you couldn’t have expected.
Sandi -
You didn’t like my animation?
I love pie. Even my friend Dick has stated that Peltier Loves Pie. But not pie charts.
Comment from Angie
Time: Wednesday, February 18, 2009, 11:48 pm
Hi Jon,
This chocolate pie enticed me to your site! Don’t know if you can help. I write a weight loss blog and am after an application that will let me create a pie chart (yes, I know you hate them, I read the posts) that looks like a pie, pizza, chocolate cake, black forest gateau, anything like that, showing how much weight I’ve lost and how much I have to go, obviously as a % of the total I want to lose. Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Angie
Comment from Saul Solis
Time: Friday, September 4, 2009, 9:28 am
Hello, i have a problem while using 3d pies, if some of the fields, or some value from the data becomes 0, then the chart has an issue, it displays a HUGE or a single color on it. Is there anything that I can do to fix this?
Thx
Comment from Jon Peltier
Time: Friday, September 4, 2009, 10:13 am
Um, Saul? The lesson is not to use pie charts, especially not 3D pie charts. Make a nice 2D bar chart.
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