Fast Line Chart in WinUI (SfCartesianChart)

14 Jun 20244 minutes to read

Fast Line Chart

The FastLineSeries is a special kind of line series that can render a collection with huge number of datapoints using the polyline segment.

XAML

<chart:SfCartesianChart>

    <chart:SfCartesianChart.XAxes>
        <chart:DateTimeAxis />
    </chart:SfCartesianChart.XAxes>

    <chart:SfCartesianChart.YAxes>
        <chart:NumericalAxis />
    </chart:SfCartesianChart.YAxes>  

    <chart:SfCartesianChart.Series>
        <chart:FastLineSeries ItemsSource="{Binding Data}" 
                              XBindingPath="XValue" 
                              YBindingPath="YValue"/>
    </chart:SfCartesianChart.Series>
</chart:SfCartesianChart>

C#

SfCartesianChart chart = new SfCartesianChart();
DateTimeAxis xAxis = new DateTimeAxis();
chart.XAxes.Add(xAxis);
NumericalAxis yAxis = new NumericalAxis();
chart.YAxes.Add(yAxis);

FastLineSeries series = new FastLineSeries()
{
    ItemsSource = new ViewModel().Data,
    XBindingPath = "XValue",
    YBindingPath = "YValue",
};

chart.Series.Add(series);

Fast Line Bitmap Chart

The FastLineBitmapSeries displays a series of line segments, rendered using WriteableBitmap. The advantage of FastLineBitmapSeries is, it renders a million data point in a fraction of seconds.

XAML

<chart:SfCartesianChart>

    <chart:SfCartesianChart.XAxes>
        <chart:DateTimeAxis />
    </chart:SfCartesianChart.XAxes>

    <chart:SfCartesianChart.YAxes>
        <chart:NumericalAxis />
    </chart:SfCartesianChart.YAxes>  

    <chart:SfCartesianChart.Series>
        <chart:FastLineBitmapSeries ItemsSource="{Binding Data}" 
                                    XBindingPath="XValue" 
                                    YBindingPath="YValue"/>
    </chart:SfCartesianChart.Series>

</chart:SfCartesianChart>

C#

SfCartesianChart chart = new SfCartesianChart();
DateTimeAxis xAxis = new DateTimeAxis();
chart.XAxes.Add(xAxis);
NumericalAxis yAxis = new NumericalAxis();
chart.YAxes.Add(yAxis);

FastLineBitmapSeries series = new FastLineBitmapSeries()
{
    ItemsSource = new ViewModel().Data,
    XBindingPath = "XValue",
    YBindingPath = "YValue"
};

chart.Series.Add(series);

Anti-aliasing

As it was rendered using bitmap, there might be some jagged lines at the edges. This is can be reduced using the EnableAntiAliasing property.

XAML

<chart:SfCartesianChart>

    <chart:SfCartesianChart.XAxes>
        <chart:DateTimeAxis />
    </chart:SfCartesianChart.XAxes>

    <chart:SfCartesianChart.YAxes>
        <chart:NumericalAxis />
    </chart:SfCartesianChart.YAxes>  

    <chart:SfCartesianChart.Series>
        <chart:FastLineBitmapSeries EnableAntiAliasing="True" 
                                    ItemsSource="{Binding Data}" 
                                    XBindingPath="XValue" 
                                    YBindingPath="YValue"/>
    </chart:SfCartesianChart.Series>
    
</chart:SfCartesianChart>

C#

SfCartesianChart chart = new SfCartesianChart();
DateTimeAxis xAxis = new DateTimeAxis();
chart.XAxes.Add(xAxis);
NumericalAxis yAxis = new NumericalAxis();
chart.YAxes.Add(yAxis);

FastLineBitmapSeries series = new FastLineBitmapSeries()
{
    ItemsSource = new ViewModel().Data,
    XBindingPath = "XValue",
    YBindingPath = "YValue",
    EnableAntiAliasing = true
};

chart.Series.Add(series);