Spiral bar charts, with their compact nature and circular form, can work well for graphing trends in time-series and/or cyclical data. Spiral bar charts are newly-added for Origin and OriginPro 2022b, along with bar map plots, circular packing graphs and right-triangle ternary plots.
As with any of Origin’s many graph types, creating these plots only requires that your data be arranged in the proper form (more on that below) and you can generate the graph with one or two clicks (some Origin graphs use an intermediary dialog box to specify analysis and charting options).

View a video on OriginLab’s new “Spiral Bar Chart” on YouTube.
Data Requirements
Data requirements are pretty basic:
- At minimum, you need an XY dataset of appropriate data (for instance, something measured against a date-time scale) .
- Optionally, a second Y column of values can be used to apply color to individual bars (i.e. color mapping, indexing, etc.)
Customization
Customization is done via the Plot Details dialog box, with support from Mini Toolbars and docked toolbar buttons.
- Access to spiral and bar characteristics is via the Spiral tab of Plot Details: Set spiral direction, starting angle, determine layout by number of windings or by time period; set a minimum radius size (center hollow), height of bars as a decimal of largest Y value and whether to add a shadow bar behind the plot.
- Labeling controls are on the Label tab. For tick labels, you can specify numeric, date or time formatting, which labels to display (all, outer, inner, etc.), how to place tick marks (major and minor), inclusion of a baseline; plus the usual font, font size, font color, etc. controls.

We hope this has motivated you to check out Origin’s new spiral bar charts! To find out more about Origin and OriginPro 2022b, visit the OriginLab website at originlab.com/2022b. There, you’ll find a rundown of new features, plus a link to the 2022b video playlist on the OriginLab YouTube channel.
If you don’t already own Origin or OriginPro 2022b and would like to try making a spiral bar chart, you can download a Trial version of the software and obtain a license to evaluate the software for 21 days.