Explanation of logarithmic scale in graph
3 posts · Closed
First of all, I want to say that I love NetGenius! It is perfect for me, so easy to use.
I don't know much about computer security, and I am not a technical person at all, but I still want to stay safe online and safeguard my privacy. I have a virus scanner installed to protect against infections, but I still needed a program that could stop other programs from going online if they don't need to. Most security suites and firewalls are too bulky and complicated; they take over the system and constantly send some data somewhere else online. It is basically trading one potential privacy threat for another. That's why I was happy to find NetGenius: it is only a few megabytes, installs in a few seconds, doesn't seem to send anything anywhere, and your site is very helpful in explaining how to start using it and achieve at least a basic level of security.
Anyway, I like it so much that I started exploring it in more detail. I found a setting in the graph called "Logarithmic Scale". I vaguely remember logarithms from school years (long time ago!) and I sort of figured out what it does in NetGenius by just trying it, but I would like to get the creator's explanation, if possible.
Once again, huge thanks for NetGenius.
Greetings from Berlin,
Tobias
It is great to hear that you like our NetGenius and find it helpful. :-)
Logarithmic scale is very useful for displaying data that spans a wide range on one chart.
For example, if you have a very low upload traffic stream and a very high download stream, using a linear scale (equally-spaced values have equally-spaced marks, i.e. same space between 1 and 2, 999 and 1000) will make the upload values barely visible. It's like trying to show a mouse and an elephant on the same chart at the same time. If the height of the chart is an inch of two, and the elephant is drawn to fit in, you will never see the mouse next to it - the mouse will be microscopic in comparison.
This is where a log scale comes handy. It is non-linear, meaning that marks for unequally-spaced values can be spaced equally (i.e. values 1, 10, 100 and 1000 can be on the marks equal to 1, 2, 3 and 4 on a linear scale). This makes the graph look "stretched" at the bottom, in the area of smaller values, and "compacted" at the top, in the area of large values, which will make the mouse (or your smaller traffic stream) appear disproportionality large compared to the elephant (your larger traffic stream), but it will be perfectly visible.
NetGenius gives users a choice: a linear scale chart (default) for proportional representation of data streams, and a logarithmic scale chart for the ability to see drastically different streams in great detail at the same time.
Amazingly detailed and clear explanation! I'm really impressed. Everything I found so far on this site is so very useful and makes perfect sense. SoftPerfect must be a team of common sense geniuses. ;-)