Introduction
This article shows how to make great looking charts in WPF. For demonstration of this, I have developed a WPF Project using Visual C# 2010 Express Edition. This project displays population of the top 5 most populous countries of the world using a column chart.
Background
Chart functionality in WPF is provided by the WPF Toolkit assembly. A reference to the System.Windows.Controls.DataVisualization.Toolkit.dll file is added to the project. Then the System.Windows.Controls.DataVisualization.Charting
namespace is imported in the page as follows:
xmlns:cht="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls.DataVisualization.Charting;
assembly=System.Windows.Controls.DataVisualization.Toolkit"
Using the Code
To provide data for the chart, the following class is created:
public class Country
{
public Country(string Name, long Population) {
this.Name = Name;
this.Population = Population;
}
public string Name {
get;
set;
}
public long Population {
get;
set;
}
}
The following class represents the list of top 5 most populous countries:
public class CountryCollection :
Collection<Country> {
public CountryCollection() {
Add(new Country("China", 1336718015));
Add(new Country("India", 1189172906));
Add(new Country("United States", 313232044));
Add(new Country("Indonesia", 245613043));
Add(new Country("Brazil", 203429773));
}
}
Next a resource called CountryCollection
is created in the XAML code as follows:
<Window.Resources>
<local:CountryCollection x:Key="CountryCollection"/>
</Window.Resources>
Following is the XAML code for the Chart control:
<cht:Chart Name="populationChart" Title="Top 5 Most Populous Countries of the World"
Background="LightBlue">
<cht:Chart.Series>
<cht:ColumnSeries Title="Population"
ItemsSource="{StaticResource CountryCollection}"
IndependentValueBinding="{Binding Path=Name}"
DependentValueBinding="{Binding Path=Population}">
</cht:ColumnSeries>
</cht:Chart.Series>
</cht:Chart>
In the above code, the CountryCollection
resource is bound to the ColumnSeries
using the
ItemsSource
property. The IndependentValueBinding
property binds the country name and
DependentValueBinding
property binds the population.
Following is the complete XAML code for the application:
<Window x:Class="WPFPopulationChart.MainWindow"
xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
xmlns:local="clr-namespace:WPFPopulationChart"
xmlns:cht="clr-namespace:System.Windows.Controls.
DataVisualization.Charting;assembly=System.Windows.Controls.DataVisualization.Toolkit"
Title="Population Chart" Height="350" Width="525">
<Window.Resources>
<local:CountryCollection x:Key="CountryCollection"/>
</Window.Resources>
<Grid>
<cht:Chart Name="populationChart"
Title="Top 5 Most Populous Countries of the World" Background="LightBlue">
<cht:Chart.Series>
<cht:ColumnSeries Title="Population"
ItemsSource="{StaticResource CountryCollection}"
IndependentValueBinding="{Binding Path=Name}"
DependentValueBinding="{Binding Path=Population}">
</cht:ColumnSeries>
</cht:Chart.Series>
</cht:Chart>
</Grid>
</Window>
Points of Interest
Population data for the chart is taken from the following link:
The population figures are as on December 2011.