Vega-lite: resolve within a facet leads to Unrecognized scale name
The following spec leads to an error (editor link)
Error: Unrecognized scale name: "child_layer_0_y"
{
"data": {
"url": "https://vega.github.io/vega-datasets/data/seattle-weather.csv"
},
"facet": {
"column": {
"field": "weather",
"type": "nominal"
}
},
"spec": {
"layer": [
{
"encoding": {
"x": {
"field": "date",
"timeUnit": "month",
"type": "temporal"
},
"y": {
"aggregate": "mean",
"field": "temp_max",
"type": "quantitative"
}
},
"mark": {
"color": "salmon",
"type": "line"
}
},
{
"encoding": {
"x": {
"field": "date",
"timeUnit": "month",
"type": "temporal"
},
"y": {
"aggregate": "mean",
"field": "precipitation",
"type": "quantitative"
}
},
"mark": {
"color": "steelblue",
"type": "line"
}
}
],
"resolve": {
"scale": {
"y": "independent"
}
}
}
}
What I expect is that it would behave just like the following spec, except with independent y axis within each facet:
{
"data": {
"url": "https://vega.github.io/vega-datasets/data/seattle-weather.csv"
},
"facet": {
"column": {
"field": "weather",
"type": "nominal"
}
},
"spec": {
"layer": [
{
"encoding": {
"x": {
"field": "date",
"timeUnit": "month",
"type": "temporal"
},
"y": {
"aggregate": "mean",
"field": "temp_max",
"type": "quantitative"
}
},
"mark": {
"color": "salmon",
"type": "line"
}
},
{
"encoding": {
"x": {
"field": "date",
"timeUnit": "month",
"type": "temporal"
},
"y": {
"aggregate": "mean",
"field": "precipitation",
"type": "quantitative"
}
},
"mark": {
"color": "steelblue",
"type": "line"
}
}
]
}
}
jakevdp
All 14 comments
This is a bug. Thanks for the report!
domoritz
on 16 Dec 2018
Ahh, so the problem is that the scales are defined inside each cell (which makes sense since they should be independent) but the header is defined outside and references a wrong scale.
domoritz
on 16 Dec 2018
Hmm, I wonder why Vega-Lite does not automatically also make the axes independent.
domoritz
on 17 Dec 2018
Something is wrong with layers inside facet. With just facet, it works.
{
"data": {
"url": "https://vega.github.io/vega-datasets/data/seattle-weather.csv"
},
"facet": {
"column": {
"field": "weather",
"type": "nominal"
}
},
"spec": {
"encoding": {
"x": {
"field": "date",
"timeUnit": "month",
"type": "temporal"
},
"y": {
"aggregate": "mean",
"field": "precipitation",
"type": "quantitative"
}
},
"mark": {
"color": "steelblue",
"type": "line"
}
},
"resolve": {
"scale": {
"y": "independent"
}
}
}
As soon as we use a layer, it breaks:
{
"data": {
"url": "https://vega.github.io/vega-datasets/data/seattle-weather.csv"
},
"facet": {
"column": {
"field": "weather",
"type": "nominal"
}
},
"spec": {
"layer": [{
"encoding": {
"x": {
"field": "date",
"timeUnit": "month",
"type": "temporal"
},
"y": {
"aggregate": "mean",
"field": "precipitation",
"type": "quantitative"
}
},
"mark": {
"color": "steelblue",
"type": "line"
}
}],
"resolve": {
"scale": {
"y": "independent"
}
}
}
}
Ahh, what you want is this (move the resolve one up).
{
"data": {
"url": "https://vega.github.io/vega-datasets/data/seattle-weather.csv"
},
"facet": {
"column": {
"field": "weather",
"type": "nominal"
}
},
"spec": {
"layer": [
{
"encoding": {
"x": {
"field": "date",
"timeUnit": "month",
"type": "temporal"
},
"y": {
"aggregate": "mean",
"field": "temp_max",
"type": "quantitative"
}
},
"mark": {
"color": "salmon",
"type": "line"
}
},
{
"encoding": {
"x": {
"field": "date",
"timeUnit": "month",
"type": "temporal"
},
"y": {
"aggregate": "mean",
"field": "precipitation",
"type": "quantitative"
}
},
"mark": {
"color": "steelblue",
"type": "line"
}
}
]
},
"resolve": {
"scale": {
"y": "independent"
}
}
}
@jakevdp Your original spec would result in dual-axis charts for each facet. I don't think we should crash but at least we know what the right spec is.
domoritz
on 17 Dec 2018
I don't think I really want to support faceted dual-axis charts so I'm inclined to just add a warning and drop the resolve in the original spec.
@kanitw @arvind what do you think?
domoritz
on 17 Dec 2018
@jakevdp Your original spec would result in dual-axis charts for each facet.
As I read it, that was the intent of the person asking the SO question.
jakevdp
on 17 Dec 2018
I see. Maybe it's not too hard to support it. It just wasn't one of the things I had tested when I wrote the resolve code.
domoritz
on 17 Dec 2018
Perhaps an hconcat + filter would be a good workaround? I haven't checked if that works.
jakevdp
on 18 Dec 2018
Yeah, the concat workaround is fine here: vega editor
jakevdp
on 18 Dec 2018
I don't think I really want to support faceted dual-axis charts so I'm inclined to just add a warning and drop the resolve in the original spec.
May I know if this decision has remain unchanged? Will faceted dual axis charts be supported in the future?
xujiboy
on 24 Nov 2019
Will faceted dual axis charts be supported in the future?
Yes, after the 4.0 release, I plan to spend some time on the dataflow code to fix issues like this. If anyone wants to help, please do.
domoritz
on 24 Nov 2019
[Summary: Got some of the goals ticked, but still not quite the graph that I'm after]
I managed to get the separate scales for each axis working for the 2 separate marks while keeping them in sync across all facets:
The trick is to specify 2 levels of resolve separately, one "inside" the spec of the facet (i.e. at the same level as the layer) and the other one "outside" (i.e. same level with) the spec of the facet:
Here is the full code:
{
"$schema": "https://vega.github.io/schema/vega-lite/v4.json",
"data":{
"url": "data/cars.json"
},
"facet":{
"column": {
"field":"Origin",
"type": "nominal"
}
},
"spec":{
"layer": [
{
"mark": {
"type": "bar",
"clip": true,
"tooltip": true
},
"encoding": {
"x": {
"field": "Cylinders",
"type": "ordinal"
},
"y": {
"field": "Acceleration",
"type": "quantitative",
"aggregate":"average",
"axis": {
"title": "Acceleration",
"orient": "left"
}
},
"color": {
"field": "Cylinders",
"type": "nominal",
"legend":null
}
}
},
{
"mark": {
"type": "line",
"clip": true,
"color":"#ffde25",
"tooltip": true
},
"encoding": {
"x": {
"field": "Cylinders",
"type": "ordinal"
},
"y": {
"field": "Weight_in_lbs",
"type": "quantitative",
"aggregate":"average",
"axis": {
"title": "Weight (lbs)",
"orient": "right"
}
}
}
}
],
"resolve": {
"scale": {"y": "independent"}
}
},
"resolve": {
"scale": {"y": "shared"},
"axis": {"y": "independent"}
}
}
So it sort of works, but it is still not quite the right graph.
Would anyone have any idea on how to keep scales of the mark independent but have the axis shared? (i.e. what I want is similar to the graph I already shown above, but I only want 1 "Acceleration" axis on the left and 1 "Weight" axis on the right of the main plot area which contains all of the column facets)
I already tried to set the "axis" option of the outer "resolve" to be {"y": "shared"}, but it results in an error:
Error: Unrecognized scale name: "child_layer_0_y"
If that is not possible at this stage, then I hope what I listed above helps demonstrate the problem with this bug a little bit clearer.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
tbui-isgn
on 21 Apr 2020
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Most helpful comment
[Summary: Got some of the goals ticked, but still not quite the graph that I'm after]
I managed to get the separate scales for each axis working for the 2 separate marks while keeping them in sync across all facets:
The trick is to specify 2 levels of resolve separately, one "inside" the spec of the facet (i.e. at the same level as the layer) and the other one "outside" (i.e. same level with) the spec of the facet:
Here is the full code:
So it sort of works, but it is still not quite the right graph.
Would anyone have any idea on how to keep scales of the mark independent but have the axis shared? (i.e. what I want is similar to the graph I already shown above, but I only want 1 "Acceleration" axis on the left and 1 "Weight" axis on the right of the main plot area which contains all of the column facets)
I already tried to set the "axis" option of the outer "resolve" to be {"y": "shared"}, but it results in an error:
Error: Unrecognized scale name: "child_layer_0_y"If that is not possible at this stage, then I hope what I listed above helps demonstrate the problem with this bug a little bit clearer.
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks.