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I'm trying to create a sparkbar (very similar to a sparkline) that can have a range of data, and needs to be displayed next to other sparkbars with the same type of data for the same time frame. The majority of the values are within +/- 10 units. However, sometimes outliers are much greater. This means that if we keep each plot consistent by scaling to the max values, most of the charts are flat with just the odd ones being clear.

Our solution is to display the majority scaled to +/- 10 and the rest have their axis expanded to the full range of values, with some indicator that they are "special". For example:

Normal Normal +/- 10 vs Special Outlier, in this case -50

However, you can see that the special one isn't that clear.

Does anyone have any suggestion on how to indicate better? One suggestion is to add a grep bar behind at +/- 10 similar to this:

Grey ver

Any thoughts?

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You could alter the colors (or just the alpha channels) to indicate a "special" value –  Jordan Bentley Nov 21 '11 at 21:26
You might look at how the BoxAndWhiskerRenderer handles outliers. –  trashgod Nov 21 '11 at 22:39
See also Creating Sparklines with JFreeChart. –  trashgod Nov 22 '11 at 4:54

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