A Surface Chart is a 3D visualization tool that maps three variables onto a continuous surface, making it ideal for analyzing multi-dimensional data. It helps uncover hidden patterns, trends, and anomalies in a visually intuitive way. Surface charts are particularly useful for comparing variations across two independent dimensions while observing how a dependent variable changes. They provide a clear representation of peaks and valleys, making it easier to identify areas of high and low intensity.
- 3D Mapping: Visualize Year–Country–Consumption relationships in one view.
- Continuous Surface: Reveals gradients, ridges, and basins that indicate trends or outliers.
- Color Palettes: Highlight low-to-high consumption zones with intuitive gradients.
- Interactivity: Rotate, tilt, zoom; tooltips; legend; surface-type switching (solid/wireframe).
- Performance: High-performance 3D rendering for medium-to-large grids.
Our interface focuses on delivering an interactive experience for exploring energy consumption data across multiple dimensions.
- Visualize a decade of energy consumption across multiple countries using a 3D surface chart.
- Encode consumption values as height and color, making peaks, valleys, and anomalies easy to spot.
- Real-time interactivity: Rotate, tilt, and zoom the chart to view data from different angles.
- Dynamic data binding via MVVM for seamless updates.
- Customizable visualization options: Switch between solid and wireframe surfaces, apply color palettes, and configure axes for clarity.
If you encounter a "path too long" exception while building this example project:
- Close Visual Studio.
- Rename the repository to a shorter name.
- Rebuild the project.
For a step-by-step procedure, refer to the Energy Analytics Interface blog.