How To Create Pie Charts Using the Circle Method in VB (153927)


The information in this article applies to:

  • Microsoft Visual Basic Standard Edition, 32-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Professional Edition, 16-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Professional Edition, 32-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition, 16-bit, for Windows 4.0
  • Microsoft Visual Basic Enterprise Edition, 32-bit, for Windows 4.0
This article was previously published under Q153927

SUMMARY

The Pinnacle-BPS Graph control shipping with Visual Basic gives users the ability to create pie charts. The Pinnacle-BPS is a relatively large control and uses a large amount of disk space on distribution disks. Therefore, the custom effects available are limited to the features of the control. The Circle method in the VBA language provides functionality to draw arcs and segments. By drawing segments, you can easily create a pie chart and add custom features as you require. Below is a code sample demonstrating how to do this.

MORE INFORMATION

  1. Start a new Visual Basic project. Form1 is created by default.
  2. Place a Command button on the form.
  3. Place a 200x200 pixel Picture box on the form.
  4. Add the following code to the Form1 code window: 
          Option Explicit

      Public Sub DrawPiePiece(lColor As Long, fStart As Double, fEnd As
      Double)
        Const PI As Double = 3.14159265359
        Const CircleEnd As Double = -2 * PI
        Dim dStart As Double
        Dim dEnd As Double
        Picture1.FillColor = lColor
        Picture1.FillStyle = 0
        dStart = fStart * (CircleEnd / 100)
        dEnd = fEnd * (CircleEnd / 100)
        Picture1.Circle (100, 100), 60, , dStart, dEnd
      End Sub

      Private Sub Command1_Click()
        Picture1.ScaleMode = vbPixels
        Call DrawPiePiece(QBColor(1), 0.001, 36)
        Call DrawPiePiece(QBColor(2), 36, 55)
        Call DrawPiePiece(QBColor(3), 55, 75)
        Call DrawPiePiece(QBColor(4), 75, 99.999)
      End Sub
  5. Press the F5 key to run the project. You should see a pie chart being drawn with four sections mirroring the four times that the DrawPiece routine was called in the Command1_Click event.

REFERENCES

For more information, please see the following articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

83906 How to Draw an Ellipse with Circle Statement in VB

73280 Overflow in VB Drawing Circle Segment w/ Radius of Zero

Instead of using the Circle method in the VBA language, you can also use the Win16/Win32 API Call to achieve the same result.
Modification Type:MinorLast Reviewed:7/15/2004
Keywords:kbgraphic kbhowto kbProgramming KB153927 kbAudDeveloper
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