Cube: How do I change the Thematic Shading settings? - Two Way Threshold Options

There are further Thematic Shading options available that allow for a two-way threshold to highlight values above and below a threshold or absolute threshold value. These thematic colouring options are intended for use with values such as a Z-score, where values can span both the positive and negative and use three colours (low, central and high) to create the two colour ranges.

The low colour range will be used from the most negative value to the negative threshold; the central ("normal") colour will be used between the negative and positive threshold; the high colour range will be used between the positive threshold and the most positive value:

Illustration of 4 negative value bands in blue, a single central band in white, and 4 high value bands in red.

The options are:

  • Quantiles From Threshold

  • Equal Ranges From Threshold

  • Quantiles From Absolute Threshold

  • Equal Ranges from Absolute Threshold

Example 1

The example below illustrates the Equal Ranges From Threshold option using the Holidays data set.

  • Create a Cube that displays Income by Gender at the People table level, restricted to Male and Female in the underlying Selection.

  • Use the dialog to add the Index statistic to the cube display:

  • Set Index as the Primary statistic:

  • Select Equal Ranges From Threshold as the thematic type and set the Threshold value to 100.

  • Change the colours used for the shading to something appropriate - e.g. Low = blue and High = red

  • Click OK to see the results:

Based on the Index statistic, with a threshold value of 100, the coloured highlighting within the cube quickly provides the insight that- on the Holidays system - there are a lower than expected number of females on high incomes.

Example 2

In the Equal Ranges From Absolute Threshold example below, the Cube will be shaded on the Zd Exp statistic with a threshold value of 3.

  • Create a Cube that displays Income by Gender at the People table level

  • Add the Zd Exp statistic to the Cube display

  • Set the Primary statistic to Zd Exp

  • The Zd Exp is the “z-score of deviation from expected value”, and is a significance measure which gives an indication of the size, direction and significance of any differences from the expected. Positive values are due to higher counts than expected and negative values due to lower counts than expected.

  • Select Equal Ranges From Absolute Threshold as the Thematic type

  • Set the Ranges to 10 and the Threshold to 3

  • Change the colours used for shading to something appropriate (as described in Example 1)

  • Click OK to see the results:

The Equal Ranges from Absolute Threshold in this example will create ranges which will be split into 10 each way from the threshold, with equal bands between the Threshold Minimum and the Threshold Maximum.

The colour highlighting on the Cube makes it easier to establish insight, such as being statistically confident that there are fewer than expected females of medium income, and more than expected high income customers with unknown gender.