SAS/Graph... Something New, Something Old

I talked to Ted Durie briefly about SAS Graph. Ted is the technical training specialist at SAS Institute. Ted showed me how PROC GMAP which is part of SAS/GRAPH has many features that allow you to create nice graphics of maps. It can have the granularity of the smallest town in the US. For example:

goptions colors=(red green purple blue orange);
proc gmap data=sasdata.summary map=maps.us;
   id state;
   where region='Boston';
   choro tot_cost / midpoints=80000 to 320000 by 80000;
   format tot_cost dollar12.;
run;

The ability to generate animated GIF images is as simple as setting a device option such as:

DEVICE = GIFANIM;

Ted also described how about 70 percent of SAS graph capabilities are now available with a friendly interface through Enterprise Guide. There are still some features that are not supported such as the annotate feature. This can be found in the old SAS/Assist. The nice thing about EG is that it has minimal cost if you already license SAS on the PC.