venndiag crashes

[Dai Grove-White]

Dear List
I am running Stata 13.1 on a PC
I have downloaded the venndiag command: STB-54 gr34_3. An update to drawing Venn diagrams / STB insert by Jens M. Lauritsen: County of Fyn, Denmark / Support: [email protected] /
However when I use it with command:

venndiag vetnoidk breednoidk defranoidk

(where the 3 variables are binary (1,0))

it crashes after producing the following screen:

File: C:\Users\daigw\Desktop\PIGS\pigs12.5.dta (13 May 2014 )
Outcome Variable and label
A: 1 vetnoidk registered with vet = 1
B: 1 breednoidk registered with breed society
C: 1 defranoidk registered with defra
313 Records in file
63 Records excluded by missing values
___
250 Records in Diagram:
Counts for combined variables:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
A | 18 7 % (vetnoidk == 1)& (breednoidk != 1)& (defranoidk != 1)
B | 1 0 % (vetnoidk != 1)& (breednoidk == 1)& (defranoidk != 1)
C | 22 9 % (vetnoidk != 1)& (breednoidk != 1)& (defranoidk == 1)
AB | 2 1 % (vetnoidk == 1)& (breednoidk == 1)& (defranoidk != 1)
AC | 87 35 % (vetnoidk == 1)& (breednoidk != 1)& (defranoidk == 1)
BC | 5 2 % (vetnoidk != 1)& (breednoidk == 1)& (defranoidk == 1)
ABC | 106 42 % (vetnoidk == 1)& (breednoidk == 1)& (defranoidk == 1)

Stata tells me it has saved temporary file ST_Ob00006.tmp although I cannot find it !

Any advice gratefully received

Dai Grove- White
University of Liverpool

[Nick Cox]

A search for "venndiag crash" in the Statalist archives shows some error reports, but whether it's the same problem or a different one I cannot say.

There is a much more recent version on SSC than that from STB 54.

[Joe Canner]

Dai,

When you say "crashes" what do you mean? Do you get an error message or does it stop before producing the graph?

The temporary files created are just that: temporary. When the program finishes they are deleted. In this case, it appears that the author is using temp files to serve the same function as preserve and restore. Moreover, the author should have used quietly with the save and set obs commands, because the output from those commands is more distracting than useful. In other words, just ignore it.

As Nick suggests, the first step is to get the most recent version of venndiag. (ssc install venndiag, replace)

Regards,
Joe

[Sergiy Radyakin]

Dai,
if the command you picked still doesn't work, you can use an alternative: VennDiagram
from http://radyakin.org/stata/venndiagram/venndiagram.htm
It creates charts like shown below. Best, Sergiy Radyakin

[Dai Grove-White]

Sergiy
Many thanks - I have installed your alternative - works perfectly. My version of venndiag is the most recent one. When it crashes there is no Stata message just one from Windows saying it is not working and should it search for a solution - then Stata closes !
Mant thanks to all
Dai

University of Liverpool

[K MacQuarrie]

I also experienced the same problem with venndiag commands (STB-54 gr34_3) causing Stata 13 to crash and close. Installing the more recent update solved the problem. I also installed VennDiagram and it, too, works without problem. It's unfortunate that neither the latest venndiag or VennDiagram shows up in the help search for Venn diagrams.

What I actually want are proportional Venn diagrams, which cannot be produced by either of these programs (if I understand correctly). I have been exploring the PVENN module for this purpose ('PVENN': module to create proportional Venn diagram; Distribution-Date: 20111128; Author: Wenfeng Gong and Jan Ostermann, Duke Center for Health Policy, support: [email protected]). However, I find the lack of documentation and my trial and error attempts to be slow going. There are some appealing features of the above commands that I'd like to take advantage of: data and value labels, titles, optimizing for black & white printing, etc. I think I can manipulate some of these with the addition of twoway options and am playing around with that. Does anyone know if there is some documentation to accompany PVENN that I could refer to, or if there is a preferable module to PVENN for my purposes?

Many thanks!
Kerry

[Sergiy Radyakin]

Dear Kerry, the VennDiagram program does not show up in search results because it is not linked to the search system (Stata doesn't know about it). All it takes is moving the package from my private site to SSC. For that to happen, all it takes is three likes to the above post #4 from May13 where you see the link. Otherwise, I think, if it is not interesting even to three people, why should be posted to SSC? Or am I too strict?

On the other comment: circular Venn charts don't allow proportionate rendering. I am pretty sure I've seen a paper proving it mathematically, but I don't have a reference now.
The difficult case is shown here in C:
http://www.biomedcentral.com/content...05-12-35-1.jpg
(the inner triangle area is difficult, imagine it was zero).
It is also mentioned here in the limitations and discussion section:
http://support.sas.com/resources/pap...9/217-2009.pdf

I think the idea is that if A and B is not empty, B and C is not empty and A and C is not empty, then A and B and C has to be not empty based on the circular chart. Which is not always true in reality. So you have to compromise. Either relax proportionate requirement, or use other shapes (or both).

It should be possible with other, non-circular shapes, but what I find is that it is less clear to read.

Charting is, imho, an art and every case of a good chart requires individual approach.

Best, Sergiy Radyakin