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Post From: depth question on new update 1911

[2019-04-28 15:52:44] Link To Thread - Link To Post [Go To First Post]
HKC01 - Posts: 6
Dear Sierra Chart support engineers: First, I would like to say thank you for creating such a solid all-in-one trading and charting platform - what you offer vs. the competition is really quite impressive. I was going to submit a new post for this request, but found this thread and decided to add my suggested enhancement to the others commenting here in hopes of getting to a solution... Below follows my enhancement request for the Market Depth Historical Graph (hereafter referred to as "MDHG"). BACKGROUND: The MDHG's main value is being able to see liquidity at different price levels and times, and as such, the expectation would be that the user is able to visually discern higher levels of liquidity as they increase on the order book (this is ESSENTIAL for me to be able to accomplish as a day trader, as it is a core part of my decision making process for trade entry and management). The expectation would essentially be that of a heatmap, where higher liquidity is either shown brighter(hot) than low liquidity (dark/cool) (or vice versa, depending on the chart background and needs of an individual). Unfortunately, with the current implementation, this is not possible by means of using only one MDHG. One can get close using multiple MDHG studies on the same chart, but still cannot accomplish a true heatmap. Including multiple studies is also an inefficient use of computational cycles and very tedious to set up. I believe the inability of creating a liquidity heatmap with the MDHG is due to one main factor: fading into each level from the background color (per your documentation here: Market Depth Historical Graph: Block Coloring Logic "Each color range is also treated as a percentage range from 0% to 100% (color percentage). A depth value is then converted to a percentage within the range of values within a specific Color range. The final color that is used is determined by a linear interpolation from the Input color to the Background color based on this color percentage, where 100% is the entered Input color *and 0% is the Background color*." [asterisk emphasis mine]) EXAMPLES: To illustrate this, I have included several examples and attached them here. In each example, I have outlined certain areas on the chart and point out the problems due to fading in from the background color at each level. Example1 (http://www.sierrachart.com/image.php?Image=1556465947623.png) and Example2 (http://www.sierrachart.com/image.php?Image=1556466003224.png): default MDHG settings (MDHGDefaultSettings.png - attached), black background (similar to example posted in the MDHG study reference), Example1 has the default Minimum Volume Intensity Percent = 20, whereas Example2 has the Minimum Volume Intensity Percent = 90. If you toggle back and forth between the two images (both are matched pixel to pixel), you can see where dark areas on the MDHG in Example1 become bright areas in Example2 due to the background being essentially ignored from the higher Minimum Volume Intensity Percent setting. Turning up the Minimum Volume Intensity Percent is undesirable due to the loss of granularity in market depth colors. Example3.png (attached) and Example4.png (attached) have the same settings as Example1, but are zoomed in and have Show Quantity Numbers set to "In Bars". These zoomed in examples point out areas of concern where higher depth numbers/liquidity has darker colors. Unfortunately, this makes it impossible to see what I am trying to identify in the MDHG - higher levels of liquidity. Example5 (http://www.sierrachart.com/image.php?Image=155646613774.png) is closer to what I would like to be able to accomplish (not necessarily with these colors, but this better shows where high liquidity appears), but this took 5 separate MDHG studies because of needing to work around fading in from the background color (which is still an issue even with 5 separate MDHG studies). Example6 (http://www.sierrachart.com/image.php?Image=1556391203569.png) is included as a zoomed-out view. PROPOSED SOLUTION: As a solution, I propose what should be a fairly straightforward change to address this problem: allow the user to input the 0% min color for each level instead of using the background color. Use the same linear interpolation from the 0% to 100% that you do with the current background color, just with the user-selected min colors as the starting point for each level. This would accommodate any particular user's needs due to chart background preferences, colorblindness needs, etc., and would save Sierra Chart spending time doing something more complex at this stage. If Sierra Chart could create a new toggle to use a specified color instead of the background as the 0%/min color for each level, and then allow the user to choose that color, it would have the following options in the Study Settings: Toggle: Use Background As Min Color; Use Specified Min Colors (Minimum Volume Intensity Percent would not be considered if using Min/Max) Double the color settings: Range 3 Max Ask Color Range 3 Min Ask Color Range 2 Max Ask Color Range 2 Min Ask Color Range 1 Max Ask Color Range 1 Min Ask Color Range 0 Max Ask Color Range 0 Min Ask Color Range 0 Min Bid Color Range 0 Max Bid Color Range 1 Max Bid Color Range 1 Min Bid Color Range 2 Max Bid Color Range 2 Min Bid Color Range 3 Max Bid Color Range 3 Min Bid Color Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you very much for considering my proposed enhancement.


Example3.png / V - Attached On 2019-04-28 15:52:23 UTC - Size: 45.55 KB - 477 views Example4.png / V - Attached On 2019-04-28 15:52:25 UTC - Size: 99.23 KB - 484 views MDHGDefaultSettings.png / V - Attached On 2019-04-28 15:52:28 UTC - Size: 31.22 KB - 441 views