How to create a line graph around a circle

Question

How can I recreate this chart (wave line) around a circle with actual data in Illustrator?

Or is any other way to generate vector format? I need this for print.

Answer 1

Put this into a file called CircularLinegraph.eps. You can then open it in any editor that understand EPS like illustrator, ghostscript, TEX, etc.

%!PS-Adobe-3.0 EPSF-3.0
%%BoundingBox: 0 0 200 200
%%Title: Circular Linegraph demo for faisal
%%Creator: Janne Ojala
%%CreationDate:  2016-11-29
%%EndComments

/demodata1 [
 10.17 8.80 10.0 9.50 9.00 6.00 7.50 8.14 6.50 7.00 8.00 7.75 4.50 8.14 5.67 6.50 6.40 5.60 6.00 4.33 6.83 4.20 4.50 3.25 5.50 4.14 7.33 6.60 5.00 4.50
 2.67 1.00 4.25 4.00 5.88 8.67 6.14 3.71 6.67 6.71 6.29 3.00 2.12 2.50 3.22 3.60 2.62 4.00 6.71 6.40 8.33 6.29 5.60 5.60 6.00 3.25 -3.50 -6.33 -4.75 -0.29 3.50
] def

/demodata2 [
 12.14 13.20 11.62 12.00 8.57 7.75 8.80 9.60 10.75 12.00 12.14 7.43 8.00 9.50 6.62 7.12 6.50 7.00 6.00 7.40 8.43 8.33 10.14 7.88 9.75 6.75 9.67 10.50 9.00 5.25 7.00
 16.00 15.12 15.71 15.71 16.25 14.50 17.62 14.50 16.71 15.50 16.00 15.50 14.80 13.57 14.25 14.00 15.00 17.00 15.00 14.29 15.29 13.00 13.75 13.50 14.00 13.62 13.57 12.75 13.29 13.29
] def

/offset 65 def
/multiplier 2 def

/pointOnCircle {
   3 dict begin
   dup /x exch cos def /y exch neg sin def /v exch def 
   x v multiplier mul offset add mul 
   y v multiplier mul offset add mul
   end
} def

/drawCircChart {
    2 dict begin
    dup /ss exch length def
    /step 360 ss div def
    aload pop

    newpath
    dup 0 pointOnCircle moveto
    step step 359.99 {
       pointOnCircle
       lineto
    } for
    closepath
    stroke
    end
} def

% set center
100 100 translate 

%draw grid
gsave
  0 0 0 0.5 setcmykcolor
  0.25 setlinewidth
  -10 10 10 { 
  newpath 
  multiplier mul offset add 0 0 3 -1 roll 0 360 arc  
  stroke
  } for 
grestore


%draw graphs
0 0.5 0.5 0 setcmykcolor 
demodata1 drawCircChart
0 1 1 0 setcmykcolor 
demodata2 drawCircChart

The demodata is here in the beginning for show. In reality all you need to do is dump your data at the end of file

[1 2 3 4 ... space separated numeric entries here ... n-1 n] drawCircChart

As many as you like.

Image 1: this is what the demo data set looks like. to add more echoes add more drawCircChart calls.

Protip If you link this file into your document, for example in illustrator, then you can edit the data afterwards and your document updates. Best of both worlds. And yes its CMYK data but you could use RGB data too just use setrgbcolor.