Question about equidistant spacing...

[eDanny]

...on non-time based charts. If there are two intervals on the same type of bars, like a 5 Range top panel and a 7 Range bottom panel, why can't the faster of the two be as equidistant as possible, ie. never overlap the candles/bars? The more uneven spacing would occur on the slower panel. Instead, both panels are awfully skewed making them both as ugly and hard to look at as possible.

[NinjaTrader_JoshP]

eDanny,

Because what about using tick and range. Then which one is the faster? Would not be able to tell, so that is why non-equidistant is just a equally spaced time line as opposed to equally spaced bars.

[eDanny]

You are right but that is why I specifically mentioned same types. I think it wouldn't be hard for the software to figure it out, especially since it is easy to determine what type of chart you are using within NinjaScript.

[NinjaTrader_JoshP]

eDanny,

Thank you for the suggestion. We find it is more confusing to have differing behaviors based on period type. Non-equidistant creates equally spaced time line for the x-axis and everything is plotted according to that time line.

[ATI user]

I notice 'Equidistant bar spacing' is not available on a YM chart with 60 sec and 3 min data series

why not just set the equidistant feature to the primary dataseries...in this case the 60 sec?

[NinjaTrader_JoshP]

Any time you have a multi-series chart, the chart will be non-equidistant bar spacing. This is to keep the behavior simple and easily understood across all permutations of mixed series.

[eDanny]

eDanny,

Thank you for the suggestion. We find it is more confusing to have differing behaviors based on period type. Non-equidistant creates equally spaced time line for the x-axis and everything is plotted according to that time line.

This is still a horrible solution when all period types are the same (ie. Range, Volume, Tick). Why would you make the spacing based on something other than the normal for those periods? Why go to Time based which creates bad looking charts all around? I can see the reasoning for going to Time as a middle ground when mixing period types but not when all are the same.

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

This is still a horrible solution when all period types are the same (ie. Range, Volume, Tick). Why would you make the spacing based on something other than the normal for those periods? Why go to Time based which creates bad looking charts all around? I can see the reasoning for going to Time as a middle ground when mixing period types but not when all are the same.

Your assumption that same period types do not need a common time axis is incorrect.

A 100 and 300 tick bars can share an non-equidistant approach --> However, a 100 and 301 tick bars can not and thus you need to have an evenly spaced time axis. In short, on time independent bars, only multiples of each other can run in equidistant bar mode. We opted not to provide this option to have equidistant bars for same intervals/multiples.

[eDanny]

No Ray I didn't assume that, and you are right if you are looking for equidistant intervals on both a 100 and 301 tick interval. What I'm saying is have the faster of the two, the 100 tk, be equidistant, like you would normally see on a single chart. The other panel with 301 tk period would have non equal spacing of course. The current solution is to have both panels garbled looking instead of only one. If the faster period is always equal spacing, you would always have the other panel with varying gaps but you would never have the overlapping bars that are possible now, on either panel. Currently you can have overlapping bars on both panels since they would be spaced on Time instead of the native faster period.

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

I see, so you are suggesting a hybrid approach. This would imply that there were two x-axis scales and the both bars would not be propertly aligned to each other.

[eDanny]

That would be true, the longer period bar would move to the right until it starts a new one. Another option would be to vary the widths of the longer bar so there would be no gaps. These options would be nice and maybe they could be toggled if the user didn't like them. I'm just thinking an half tidy chart would be better than a complete messy chart.

[ATI user]

what am I missing?

if all types are based on time (excl volume), base the equidistant feature on the base data series

e.g. for a 60 sec and 3 min chart where the 60 sec is the primary data series in the chart, make the 60 sec bars equidistant and plot the 3 min bars on the same time scale

for a mix of tick, range etc, ....same thing...the user chooses the base/primary data series for the chart knowing that that series will have equidistant bars and the others may or may not

would that not work?

[NinjaTrader_Ray]

In an equidistant chart --> There is no unfiform time scale. You can not plot one series equidistant and then line up another series along a time scale since there is no uniform time scale. It will not work. When equidistant is true (lets say a 1 minute chart) and say you are missing ten minutes of data --> You will not visually see ten minute gap. If you have another series that has bars that would have a time stamp in this missing gap --> You would have no way to plot it.

Trust me, what we have implemented is the only option for accurately mixing multiple series in proper time relation to each other.

[ATI user]

thanks....got it now

no worries ....just means I have to manually compress/expand the time scale on multi-series charts

[trader1512]

cant say that i do

basically, what you are saying is there is no way to have two data series with different time intervals on the same chart. es 5 range will not line up with ess 3 range. is that correct?