topic Re: A 5-way Venn diagram in Graphics Programming

A 5-way Venn diagram

Emma_at_SAS — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 15:32:16 GMT

Hello,

I have a large sample (about 4,000) and five variables and I want to make a Venn diagram for these 5 variables.

I found this article https://www.sas.com/content/dam/SAS/support/en/sas-global-forum-proceedings/2018/1965-2018.pdf

that shows making Venn diagrams in SAS for up to 4 variables. I wonder if I may do a similar procedure and make a 5-way Venn diagram.

Thanks

Re: A 5-way Venn diagram

Reeza — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 17:34:23 GMT

Yes it could be extended but it's definitely work. Have you tried to so far?

Re: A 5-way Venn diagram

Emma_at_SAS — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 17:42:34 GMT

Thanks @Reeza for your message. I was checking first to see if anyone has done this before and if I can get help to start it. I even do not know yet how to do a 4-way Venn diagram in SAS. I found that R can do higher-order Venn diagrams. Also, when I checked other examples, the 5-way or higher order Venn diagrams are very hard to read. I am thinking about other ways to present/visualize My results for now but have a Venn diagram in my mind as well. Thanks

Re: A 5-way Venn diagram

Reeza — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 17:46:11 GMT

I guess for starters extract the code from the appendix and try the examples for 4 way Venn diagrams?

A 5 way diagram is almost impossible to interpret - Agreed.

Splitting into multiple graphics is likely a better option, small multiples are my preference, but ultimately depends on data and goals.

Re: A 5-way Venn diagram

ballardw — Thu, 25 Aug 2022 18:50:47 GMT

A Venn diagram has 2**n cells. So a 5-way would have 32 cells. Do you actually have 32 different combinations to display? If you have lots of not-present combinations then perhaps a different display may be appropriate.

Re: A 5-way Venn diagram

Emma_at_SAS — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 15:04:27 GMT

Thank you @ballardw for your thoughts. I have respondents in all categories but a Venn diagram is too busy and very hard to interpret. I am using simpler graphs to show the popular combinations. Thanks

Re: A 5-way Venn diagram

GraphGuy — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 15:45:12 GMT

I definitely would not recommend spending a lot of time & effort trying to implement it in SAS, just to see what it looks like. I don't think the results would be useful, and the time wasted would be what I like to call "a fool's errand" 🙂

If there's already code to do it in R, I would recommend first using R to try it out, and see if it provides any useful insight to your data. If the R venn diagrams provide useful insight, then that might justify investing the effort to try to reproduce it in SAS.

Re: A 5-way Venn diagram

Emma_at_SAS — Mon, 29 Aug 2022 15:49:18 GMT

Thank you @GraphGuy for your thoughts on this. I agree with your suggestions. Thanks