A simple area chart shades the area under a curve formed by the data points in a series. Multiple series result in overlapped areas. This chart type is used to display the trends of values over time or categories.
Simple Area Chart
A spline area chart is an area chart with a smooth spline curve connecting the data points.
Spline Area Chart
Stacked area charts are area charts with y-coordinate values stacked over one another in order of series. Chart data can be viewed as a sum of series parts in this chart type.
Stacked Area Chart
Range area charts take two y values and plots an area that spans between these two y values in a set of points.
Range Area Chart
Range column charts take two y values and plots columns that span between these two y values in a set of points.
Range Column Chart
Step area charts are similar to regular area charts where, instead of a straight line tracing the shortest path between points, the values are connected by continuous vertical and horizontal lines that form a step-like progression.
Step Area Chart
A bar chart is the simplest and most versatile of all statistical diagrams. It compares values across categories and is ideal to highlight variations in an item value over time using horizontal bars. Points from adjacent series are drawn as bars next to each other.
Simple Bar Chart
Stacked bar charts are bar charts with y-coordinate values stacked over one another in order of series. Chart data can be viewed as the sum of series parts when using the stacked bar chart.
Stacked Bar Chart
In a 100% stacked bar chart, the cumulative proportion of each stacked element always totals 100%. This type of chart is great to visualize the relative contribution of each series value to the whole.
100% Stacked Bar Chart
Frequently used in project management, a Gantt chart provides a graphical illustration of a schedule to help plan, coordinate, and track specific tasks of a project.
A Gantt chart provides a graphical representation of the duration of the task against the progression of time. Each task takes up one row. The expected time requirement for each task is represented by a horizontal bar whose left and right ends mark the beginning and completion date of the task. Another bar, usually rendered behind the previously mentioned bar, is used to represent the progression of the task. Tasks may run in sequential, parallel, or overlapped fashions.
Gantt Chart
A histogram is a bar (column) chart of a frequency distribution in which the width of a bar is proportional to the variable class and the height of a bar is proportional to the class frequency. The categories (bars) are generally non-overlapping intervals of the variable, and must be continuous. In addition, the chart has the capability to display a normal distribution curve.
Histogram Chart
A tornado chart is a bar chart that shows the variability of an output with respect to different inputs. Variability is displayed using relative lengths of bars across a range. It is mainly used in sensitivity analysis and shows how different random factors can influence the prognostic outcome of a variable.
Tornado Chart
Column charts are the most commonly used charts, where the data points are displayed by vertical bars. It is similar to a bar chart, except that the bars are vertical and not horizontal.
Used for comparing the frequency, count, total, or average of data in different categories. Ideal for displaying variations in the value of an item over time. Points from adjacent series are drawn as bars next to each other. Error bars are supported to indicate a degree of uncertainty in the plotted data through a bar indicating a range. Plenty of symbol options are available to be rendered on error bars.
Column Chart
Data points from different series are rendered one over the other in the stacked column chart. They are very useful for indicating the cumulative effect of multiple series values.
Stacked Column Chart
100% Stacked Column Chart
In a 100% stacked column chart, the cumulative proportion of each stacked element always totals 100%. This type of chart is great to visualize the relative contribution of each series values to the whole.
100% Stacked Column Chart
Line charts refer to charts where the data points on a plot are joined using straight or curved 2–D or 3–D lines. These charts are ideal to represent time-dependent data that show trends in data at equal intervals.
Error bars, which are used to indicate a level of uncertainty in the points that are plotted, can also be included.
Error Bars in a Line Chart
A spline chart is a line-chart with a smooth line connecting the data points.
Spline Chart
Step line charts use horizontal and vertical lines to connect data points, resulting in a step-like progression.
Step Line Chart
A rotated spline chart is a spline chart rotated 90 degrees. It is useful for visualizing how far data points deviate from a median value.
Rotated Spline Chart
Pie and doughnut charts are ideal for displaying percentages in a fractional format of proportionate values.
Plots y values in one series as fractional parts of a circle. The data point value determines the portion of the pie that is taken up by the point.Displays only one data series at a time.Can be used to display only nominal (categorical, qualitative) data. Each data item in a chart has a unique color or pattern and is represented in the chart legend. Supports bevel, round, inside, outside, and custom chart types.
Pie Chart
Doughnut Chart
Concentric Pie Charts Support allows visualizing and analyzing mulitple series of data in pie charts laid out one outside another.
Concentric Pie Charts
Accumulation charts are typically single-series charts that represent data in percentages and do not utilize axes.
A funnel chart is a type of accumulation chart in which the height of the funnel segment corresponds to the y-coordinate value of a point in a series.
Funnel charts are often used to represent stages in a sales process and display the potential revenue for each stage. Alternatively, the y-coordinate value can also be made to correspond
to the width of the segment.
Funnel Chart with a Circular Base
A pyramid chart is another type of accumulation chart that is triangular in shape. Similar to a funnel chart, the height of a segment is proportional to the y-coordinate value of the corresponding point.
Pyramid Chart
A radar chart is a clock-face form of a line chart.
Ability to compare the aggregate values of a data series. Represents each data series as a line around a central point. Provides a graphical display of the difference between actual and ideal performance. Useful for defining performance and identifying strengths and weaknesses.
Radar Chart
A polar chart is a circular graph in which data is displayed in terms of values and angles.
An option is provided to perform a visual comparison between several quantitative or qualitative aspects. When charts are drawn for several situations using the same axes (poles), a visual comparison between the situations can be made. The x-coordinate value of a data point is used to set the angle. The y-coordinate value defines the distance from the center of the graph.
Polar Chart
A candle chart displays stock information using the high, low, open, and close values. The high and low values are represented by the wick of a candle. The candle represents open and close values.
Candle Chart
A HiLo chart is a special kind of chart that is normally used in stock analysis. They are typically used to display error bars or the trading range of a stock for each period.
HiLo Chart
A Hi-Lo-Open-Close chart is a special kind of chart that is normally used in stock analysis. This chart type expects four y values for every point in the series. Those values should represent the high, low, open, and close values of the stock, in that order, for that period.
HiLo Chart
Kagi charts contain a series of connecting vertical lines where the thickness and direction of those lines depend on price.
Kagi Chart
A point and figure chart is used to identify support levels, resistance levels, and chart patterns.
Point and Figure Chart
In Renko charts, a brick is drawn in the direction of the prior move only if prices move by a minimum amount. If prices change by the determined amount or more, a new brick is drawn. If prices change by less than the determined amount, the new price is ignored.
Renko Chart
Three line break charts are similar in concept to point and figure charts. The three line break charting method is named so because of the number of lines typically used.
Three Line Break Chart
The box and whisker chart is used to summarize the median, upper and lower quartile, and the minimum and maximum data values.
Box and Whisker Chart
Essential Chart for Silverlight is ideal for creating financial chart types with built-in support for technical indicators.
Technical indicators are values calculated from price and volume information displayed as line charts below or on top of price charts. They are used to improve the data analysis capabilities of a chart with regard to information on pricing, volume, and other metrics used in business calculations. Essential Chart supports ten types of indicators,
including Bollinger band, stochastic, exponential average, and moving average.
Bollinger bandsMoving AveragesExponential Averages,StochasticRelative StrengthAccumulation DistributionMACD
Technical Indicators
Essential Chart for Silverlight comes with several built-in skins that you can easily pick and choose to match your corporate needs.
Built-In Silverlight Chart Skins
Support for multi-color palettes lets you create presentation ready charts in a snap.
Chart with Multicolor Segments
Every portion of Essential Chart is fully customizable in Microsoft Expression Blend. Individual series elements can also be templatized to define a custom look.
All series data point UI elements are customizable by providing a custom template.
Scatter Chart with Templatized Data Points
Empty Points support allows you to include empty points for some X axis values like weekends. You can also optionally show an average value automatically computed from adjacent points for those points.
Empty Points Displayed with an average value
Even use animations in your custom templates—ideal for creating presentation type apps.
Smart Labels allow you to clearly identify data points that are too crowded in a plot.
Smart Labels in chart points
There are several built-in customization options available to customize the series, legend, labels, axes, data points, context menu, tick marks, gridlines, and chart areas.
Some Legend Label Customizations Applied
Further customization is also possible by creating custom templates for chart elements using Expression Blend. The customization possibilities are endless using this approach.
Essential Chart for Silverlight provides numerous built-in interactivity features like zooming, panning after zooming, toolbars, ToolTips, and interactive cursors to greatly enhance the data visualization experience for end users.
Interactivity Options
Tooltips
Interactive cursors let you interactively mark a line in the chart to indicate some threshold level.
Interactive Cursors
The built-in context menu is great for allowing the end users to customize the look and feel of the chart during run time.
Built-in Context Menu
Besides being able to plot numerical values (months of the year, etc.) in the x-axis you can also plot categorical information like the name of a person, etc. which are just plotted sequentially in the order in which they are encountered.
Data Types Handled by Charts
Empty Points Displayed with a Different Color
You can include scale breaks if there is a break in continuity of the values plotted on the secondary axis. These Scale breaks can be added to a chart automatically or can be set manually.
You can customize the appearance of the scale breaks to be a straight line, a wave-like line, or the appearance can be randomized.
Other customizable options include the line color, line thickness, space color, space width, and line style.
Chart with Scale Break
SyncChartAreas allows multiple charts to share a common primary axis while maintaining a unique secondary axis for each chart.
This feature is useful when comparing two sets of data that share a common measurement.
With this feature, a chart area can be resized by clicking and dragging, and the other chart area will be resized automatically.
Zoom support is also available, and can be used to zoom in on both chart areas simultaneously along the shared axis.
Synchronized Chart Areas Sharing an X-Axis
Resized Synchronized Chart Areas
