DevExpress Charts: Data Aggregation, Legend Check Boxes, and Selection (What’s New in 13.2)

Visualizing data is probably one of the most fantastic things one can do. That is why charting is near and dear to my heart. As we continue to develop powerful visualization components we are proactively trying to make things simpler and easier to use.

With that in mind there are a couple of features that follow the spirit of these principles.

Automatic Data Aggregation (WinForms and ASP.NET)

Charts with a lot of data are ugly because the computer just happily draws everything you give it. There is seldom a case where this is what we want to do. Enter data aggregation. Starting in 13.2, a chart can automatically aggregate its data according to the specified Aggregate function:

In addition, you can manually specify a Scale Mode and Measure Unit to control how data is aggregated:

This feature becomes extremely useful when used in conjunction with zooming and scrolling in WinForms charts. Now you can immediately see trends over large swaths of data and zoom in to a specific area to get a better look at localized trends.

This will now work with both numerical and time based arguments.

Legend Check Boxes (WinForms, ASP.NET, WPF, Silverlight)

I think this picture says it all:

I was going to write a thousand words but I think the ability to turn series off and on is fantastic. This will work for WinForms, ASP.NET, WPF, and Silverlight and is easily activated by setting the Legend.UseCheckBoxes property to true.

This feature is also available for strips, constant lines and financial indicators.

Selection (WPF and Silverlight)

Previously we had support for highlighting specific points in a WinForms/ASP.NET chart by using the chart's SetObjectSelection method. 

Starting in 13.2 you will now have this ability in our WPF and Silverlight Charts. We've added the ChartControl.SelectedItem and ChartControl.SelectedItems properties and fully implemented the MVVM pattern for giving you the full power of WPF binding.

In Conclusion

This is by no means everything we’ve done for this release. I’ve left out a couple of things (including some neat mapping features I will talk about later).

As we continue to drive forward with our data visualization tools, we are confident that you will find incremental improvements that will simplify your process of acquiring, shaping, and visualizing your data.

As always, if there are any comments and/or questions, feel free to get a hold of me!

Seth Juarez
Email: sethj@devexpress.com
Twitter: @SethJuarez

Free DevExpress Products - Get Your Copy Today