Version History

The list below describes recent changes and additions to MindFusion.Charting for WPF:

New in Version 1.9

Real-time Chart Library

A brand new library has been added to the MindFusion.Charting for WPF component - a real time chart. The new control is specially optimized to render fast large amounts of data in real time. Its major feature is the ability to handle a lot of points without loading the machine it runs on. The library also offers various customization options for the chart - scatters, multiple legends, multiple Y and Y2 axes, custom labels, tooltips, grid. You can read more about the component in the "Real Time Chart" section in the "Programming Interface Overview" topic. We have added samples, tutorial and detailed documentation for the component in the MindFusion.Charting for WPF installation.

MindFusion.Charting for WPF

• ShowCrosshair renders a crosshair that will trace the mouse position over the plot area.
• Curve property, which when enabled draws a line as a canonical spline.

3D Charts

• All 3D charts support unlimited number of series.
• New property Lights holds a collection of Light objects instead of the LightType property.
• Detailed hit testing, which returns a ChartHitTestResult3D that contains the clicked 3D point, the normalized 3D point, a collection of chart elements (if found), and the nearest peak (in surface charts).
• AllowMeshSelection property, which when enabled allows selection of mesh objects with a mouse click. The MeshSelectionBrush sets the  brush for the selection.
• Behavior3D property, which lets you choose how the chart responds to mouse interactions.
• Improved performance for all chart types.

Surface Charts

• SurfaceType property, which sets whether scatters or surface is drawn.
• SurfaceSeries.GroundLevelMargin property, which sets the GroundLevel-offset.
• Each Series3D can be clipped in a given range with the ClipMinimum and ClipMaximum properties.
• TextureType property sets the texture of the chart - Brush or ColorMap.
• New ColorMapList property, which sets a Color map with arbitrary colors and offsets.
• CloseModelFigure property, which closes the sides of the model if enabled.

New in Version 1.8

Styles and Themes

Styles define the appearance of a given chart element - the axis, the series, the legend. Each ChartTheme is a collection of styles. With MindFusion.Charting for WPF you can now:

• create themes based on the appearance of an existing chart
• create themes with the ThemeEditor tool
• save themes to XML files
• load themes from XML files
• use a number of predefined themes.

The "Working with Themes"  tutorial gives detailed information on how to create, save, load and edit themes with MindFusion.Charting for WPF.

Better Design Time Support

MindFusion.Charting for WPF lets you now edit all collection properties, including the Series collection, the brushes and strokes in design time through the property grid.

Axis Intervals

The new AxisSettings.IntervalCount property lets you specify the exact number of intervals at the axis. In such case the control does not use the Interval property and calculates the value of each interval based on AxisSettings.Min, AxisSettings.Max and AxisSettings.IntervalCount.

API Changes

• ChartSeries.Fills, ChartSeries.Strokes, LineSeries.ScatterFills, LineSeries.ScatterStrokes are now of type BrushCollection. The change was required by the new design time support features.
• a bug with the Series property in the ChartLegend was fixed.

Important Note:

Due to the extended design time support that we added in this version all predefined data series and brush collections have been removed from the charts. This might lead to exceptions if you reference them. To correct this just create a new instance of the type you are trying to access in the collection.

Wrong:

C#

//this will result in an exception, there isn't a predefined series any more.
BarSeries series0 = barChart.Series[0] as BarSeries;

VB.NET

'this will result in an exception, there isn't a predefined series any more.
Dim series0 As BarSeries = TryCast(barChart.Series(0), BarSeries)

Correct:

C#

BarSeries series0 = new BarSeries();
barChart.Series.Add(series0);

VB.NET

Dim series0 As New BarSeries()
barChart.Series.Add(series0)

The

New in Version 1.7

Radar and Polar charts

A brand new type of charts has been added - the radar chart control. It supports:

• unlimited number of data series
• 4 types of labels at the inner axis and outer axes
• label borders
• customizable sweep angle and sweep direction
• spiderweb
• labels for each data series
• scatters
• custom labels

Hit testing

MindFusion.Charting for WPF supports hit testing. Use the HitTest method, which returns a  list of ChartElement objects that contain the specified point. Each chart element  has properties that help you identify the data that it represents:

• PiePiece.SliceIndex and PiePiece.SliceValue get the index of the data this piece represents in the Data for the PieSeries as well its value.
• Bar.BarIndex and Bar.SeriesIndex get the index of the bar in the series and the index of the series in the Series collection. The Value property gets the value for the bar.
• Line.SeriesIndex gives you the index of the Line in the Series collection. DataPoints gives you the data for this Line as provided by the user.

Visual Effects

Each chart supports the System.Windows.Media.Effects.DropShadowEffect and System.Windows.Media.Effects.Blur effect. Use the Effect property to specicy the chosen effect.

New in Version 1.6

3D bar charts

New type of charts has been added to the MindFusion.Charting for WPF control - the BarChart3D chart. It supports:

• 6 types of 3D bar charts
• multiple series
• customizable width, height and depth of the 3D model
• positive and negative values on all three axes
• offset on all three axes
• customizable light, interactive camera
• the ability to set corner radius for the bars

The new chart is represented by the BarChart3D class. The tutorial "Building a 3D Bar Chart" offers step-by-step instructions on how to adjust a 3D bar chart according to your needs.

3D pie charts

Another new type of charts has been added to the MindFusion.Charting for WPF control - the PieChart3D chart. It supports:

• 3D pie and doughnut charts
• inner and outer labels
• multiple series
• customizable inner radius in doughnut charts
• chart rotation, interactive camera
• customizable width, height and depth of the model
• two layouts for pie pieces
• detached pieces
• customizable start angle

The new chart is represented by the PieChart3D class. The tutorial "Building a 3D Pie Chart" offers step-by-step instructions on how to adjust a 3D pie chart according to your needs.

New in Version 1.5

Surface charts

New type of charts has been added to the MindFusion.Charting for WPF control. It supports:

• positive and negative values on the X, Y and Z-axis with the SurfaceSeries.XData,SurfaceSeries.YData and SurfaceSeries.ZData properties;
• wireframe with adjustable color, width and thickness with the ShowWireFrame, SquareSize and WireFrameThickness properties;
• customizable surface color, elevation shape and sensitivity with the SurfaceColor, ElevationShape and ElevationSensitivity properties;
• interactive rotation of the camera with the AllowCameraInteraction property;
• adjustable camera position and light type with the RotationAngle, RotationAxis and LightType properties;
• scaling of the chart with the Scale property.

The new chart is represented by the SurfaceChart class.  The tutorial "Building a Surface Chart" offers step-by-step instructions on how to adjust a surface chart according to your needs.

New in Version 1.4

Dragging

Users can drag data points in line charts or the top of a bar in bar charts to change the data value. This is done by setting the Behavior property to Behavior.AllowXDrag or Behavior.AllowYDrag. The Behavior enumeration now allows bitwise combination and you can enable dragging along both X and Y axis.

Second X-axis

The X2AxisSettings allows you to define a second X-axis. Data for series that are bound to X2 is set with X2Data. X2Labels sets custom labels for the X2-axis. Data binding is available through the X2DataPath and X2LabelPath properties.

Miscellaneous

• Data binding properties for the second Y-axis are available: Y2DataPath and Y2LabelPath.
• Chart series can have dashed strokes or outlines with the StrokeDashArray, StrokeDashCap, StrokeDashOffset, StrokeEndLineCap, StrokeLineJoin, StrokeMiterLimit and StrokeStartLineCap properties.
• The new LabelStroke property sets the brush for drawing labels at chart axes. The TitleStroke defines the brush for drawing the title label. TitleRotationAngle defines the rotation angle of the title label in horizontal axes.

New in Version 1.3

Zoom

Zooming is now supported in all types of bar and line charts - just set the Behavior property to Behavior.ZoomChart. You can zoom out the chart one step at a time by calling ZoomOut. Use ResetZoom to restore the chart to its original state at once.

DateTime values

You can set the XData, YData or Y2Data of the LineSeries or BarSeries instances to DateTime values. Set the ValueFormat property of the respective AxisSettings object to ValueFormat.DateTime and specify appropriate DateTime values as start and end of the axis. You can find details on how to use DateTime values with the control in the DateTime Values section of this reference.

Miscellaneous

• You can set the start angle in pie charts with StartAngle.
• Labels at the chart axis can be rotated with the LabelRotationAngle property.
• Improved space calculations in line and bar charts with mixed data.

New in Version 1.2

Second Y-axis

A second Y-axis can be drawn and customized with the Y2AxisSettings property. In order to show the axis you should set its MinValue and MaxValue, optionally the Interval. Y2Labels lets custom text be set as labels for the Y2-axis.

Bar charts

• Annotations: annotations can be drawn at any position in the bar and as many of them as you need. Use the Annotations property to add the annotations. The properties of the Annotation class let you customize each annotation.
• Progress: bars can be filled up to a certain point using the Progress property.
• Top labels: you can drawn labels at the top of each bar. Use the TopLabelType property to choose the type of the labels. Use the TopLabel property to set custom text.

Miscellaneous

• Use the Y2Data property to create LineSeries, which data is bound to Y2.
• OuterLabelOffset controls the distance between the edge of a pie piece and its outer label.
• New scatter types added to the ScatterType Enumeration.

New in Version 1.1

Gauges

Gauges have been added to MindFusion.Charting for WPF.

Pie charts

Custom inner and outer labels are now supported. The properties are InnerLabel, OuterLabel and InnerLabelPath and OuterLabelPath when data binding is used.

Scatters

The new properties ScatterType, ScatterSize, ScatterFills and ScatterStrokes allow easy customization of scatter objects in line charts.