Practical WPF Charts and Graphics (Expert's Voice in .NET) [Paperback]

Jack Xu (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 10, 2009 | ISBN-10: 1430224819 | ISBN-13: 978-1430224815 | Edition: 1

Creating 2D and 3D charts is one of the most common uses of computer graphics. Such charts can have wide applications in representing mathematical, physical, and economic functions in your daily life. Whether you are an engineer, a quantitative analyst, a teacher, or a student, you will end up dealing with charting applications to some degree.

Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) is a next-generation graphics platform that enables you to build advanced user interfaces incorporating documents, media, 2D and 3D graphics, and animations. It is an ideal development tool that allows you to not only generate data, but also easily represent data graphically.

Practical WPF Charts and Graphics provides all the tools you will need to develop professional chart and graphics applications in WPF and C#. This book will be useful for WPF and C# programmers of all skill levels, providing a complete and comprehensive explanation of WPF’s graphics capability and the creation of various charts, and paying special attention to the details of code implementation.

What you’ll learn

• Understand the types of charts that can be developed in WPF and how WPF can be used to maximum effect in their development
• Develop a wide range of charts that consist of not only simple 2D and 3D graphs, but also the multimedia elements, embedded documents, and animations now commonly found in cutting-edge applications
• Adapt the wide selection of fully working demonstration charts that are provided with the book and integrate them into your own web site for instant results

Who this book is for

Practical Charts and Graphics is more than just a book—it's a powerful 2D and 3D charts and graphics package. You will find that many of the examples in the book can be immediately used in your real-world applications, and that many others will inspire you to create advanced graphical and sophisticated chart capabilities of your own.

This book is targeted at professional developers and those who are studying to become professionals. Its coverage is equally valuable to both groups, providing a strong reference for one audience and an excellent introduction to the other.

Table of Contents

1. Overview of WPF Programming
2. 2D Transformations
3. WPF Graphics Basics in 2D
4. Colors and Brushes
5. 2D Line charts
6. Specialized 2D Charts
7. Stock Charts
8. Interactive 2D Charts
9. 2D Chart Controls
10. Data Interpolations
11. Curve Fitting
12. 3D Transformations
13. WPF Graphics Basics in 3D
14. 3D Charts with the WPF 3D Engine
15. 3D Charts Without the WPF 3D Engine
16. Specialized 3D Charts

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

A bio is not currently available for this author.

Product Details

• Paperback: 712 pages
• Publisher: Apress; 1 edition (November 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1430224819
• ISBN-13: 978-1430224815
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 7.5 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #452,280 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Sun source for WPF graphics, December 21, 2009

By 

Robin T. Wernick (San Jose) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Practical WPF Charts and Graphics (Expert's Voice in .NET) (Paperback)

As a professional programmer I don't have a lot of time to waste learning all the details to master a new programming area. I had to buy five books on database programming to get one decent database working for my clients. With WPF I have found there are just three books to buy to master its intricacies. Get "Windows Presentation Foundation", "Pro WPF", and Dr. Wu's "Practical WPF Charts and Graphics". The other books are helpful, but not really necessary.

This book gets right down to the etails of mastering chart graphics. Within a few chapters, specialized charts are covered. Dr. Xu shows how to do almost every form of scientific and financial charting I have ever encountered. Although the code is designed to show off the approach to building a single chart application, the data series and configuration style objects introduced by the book can be easily altered to build multiple chart conglomerations for stock charts with indicators or scientific multiple view sets with minimal work. I found that the XAML code needed to be tweaked to insure that it coupled multiple canvas areas to the correct code operations, but there are always going to be small glitches when code examples are expanded for professional needs.

The code examples are introduced in a simple to complex sequence that allows the reader to get easily accustomed to the support objects and to understand how chart styles need to be adapted to each type of chart. I figure that this one book has saved me at least a hundred hours of exploring failed approaches to WPF charting. I have two other books by this author and I knew that this one would display the same efficiency of introduction and clarity of organization as before. I was thoroughly satisfied with his latest approach to explaining WPF charts. I have now moved on to combining several simultanous charts with chart interaction.

By the way, previous to applying Dr. Xu's writings, I was looking at paying up to $2000 for the code behind the EzyStockCharts library to solve my charting needs and I would have been forced to build a C++ wrapper around the code to use it in a .NET environment. That would have been very time consuming and I would only have found a two dimensional solution for all my time and cost. The source code for all the C# examples in the book and a few more is currently available and easily downloadable from the internet. The download also includes the binaries to run each project and allows you to quickly discover exactly how each sample behaves in the real world of your computer.

If you are serious about investing in your software career, or in avoiding a costly project failure, this book will give your knowledge base a definite competitive edge. I'm looking forward to applying the information that I encountered in this book to the display of large database patterns as well as my stock chart displays. I hope you see the advantage of becoming an instant charting expert by reading this book.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Mixed feelings, January 6, 2011

By 

Dimitri Shvorob - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Practical WPF Charts and Graphics (Expert's Voice in .NET) (Paperback)

I bought "Practical WPF Charts and Graphics" to learn how to draw scatter/line plots and histograms - no 3D for me - and found it perfectly adequate. The book and its companion site give you code for several plot types, so you can start playing in no time. I did, and then things went downhill. Presented code is, in my opinion, poorly written and needs heavy refactoring and expansion: the small class library I eventually ended up with has little in common with Mr. Xu's. The author does not bother with explanation, and is happy to let the code run: getters and setters alone add at least 10 pages, and large blocks of code migrate from one chapter to another. Proper editing could have cut down the page count by half or more. Although helpful, this is not a proper book, but a collection of code print-outs.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A great jump-start, March 6, 2010

By 

E. Gonzalez - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Practical WPF Charts and Graphics (Expert's Voice in .NET) (Paperback)

I purchased this book mainly for creating line charts. I had some very specific requirements and I couldn't find a third-party control (open source or commercial) that met every requirement. Dr. Xu's book was recommended so I purchased it from Amazon and I haven't regretted that purchase.

This book was a fabulous jump-start. I was able to quickly produce a control that supported a lot of the features that were requested. After a little extension and refactoring, I've been able to meet every requirement.

I was surprised to find logarithmic axes not covered in the book. Extending the code to use logarithmic and mixed linear/logarithmic axes was straight forward. The way the material is presented was essential for grasping the basics needed in order to make that and other extensions.

Dr. Xu began with a very simple chart and extended it, building upon a simple foundation. Each new feature was added until we've constructed a stand-alone chart with decent capabilities. After we have a stand-alone chart, we learned how to take that chart and create a reusable control. Precisely what I needed.

The lack of logarithmic axes, non-interactive legends, and other minor quibbles reduced my rating from five to four stars. These and other enhancements were easy enough to add, thanks in part to Dr. Xu's presentation and WPF.

I would recommend this book to anyone considering writing or purchasing a chart in WPF. It has been a great resource and it will stay on my shelf for some time to come. Good job Dr. Xu!