histogram - interval size?

[scottum]

I am using the General Histogram.vi to create a histogram of 100000 data points and I will typcially have a bin # of 1000.  What I am trying to work out is how to determine if the bin sizes are all the same and also to determine what the bin sizes actually are, is there a way to check this out?

Also I am not sure what to make of, or how to use, the bins component of the vi (in my vi I currently have it in there but not wired up), specifically if I want to use that function do I need to specify an upper/lower/inclusion value for each bin separately or is it possible to do this globally (for example could I specify that I want each bin to be 10 data points long).  Or is this, in a sense, covered by the # of bins I selected.

I have included my vi and some test data I have been using, in case it somehow helps.

Thanks for any help.

[Chris_VH · Accepted solution]

Hey Scott,

Basically, the bins input overrides the max, min, and #bins inputs, I will explain this further.

The max, min, #bins input will create uniformaly spaced bins between your max and min. For example, 0-10 with 5 bins will give you 0-2, 2-4, etc.

The bins input is an array of clusters of:

lower

upper

inclusion (can be 0-4: 0 includes lower, 1 includes upper, 2 includes both, and 3 includes neither)

So, since its an array, you are specifying "custom" bins. So, if you want a bin to go from 0-2, then one to go from 2-9, you can set that up with this input. If there is a non-zero input for bins (as in, you have changed something) the VI will ignore any inputs to the max, min, and #bins input. 

Hope this helps!

[scottum]

Thanks for that Chris.

That makes sense to me (and is somewhat obvious once I realised what it was about) and it has sorted out my issue of wanting to ensure that I can produce uniformily spaced bins between whatever max and min I set up. I thought the bins input might do somethign like that, but wasn't entirely sure, so again thanks.

Scott