Heat Maps Part 3 - Combining Effects

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Thursday, July 26, 2012 at 10:35am

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In the previous Heat Maps post, we talked about the new MicroHeatMapPresenter control's size changing abilities. In today's post, we'll look at how the color and size changing abilities can be combined to display two sets of data in the same heat map.

Color and Size-Based Heat Maps

MicroHeatMapPresenter controls can change both color and size at the same time to display two different data values with each marker.  The sizing and color changing behaviors function independently, so they can represent two completely separate data sets.

MicroHeatMap

In the example above, fifteen separate MicroHeatMapPresenter controls have been customized to render as circles and change size and color in order to display both the number of items sold, and the profit per item for three products in five cities. 

The color and size of each control is calculated based on the position of their given color and size values in the range of color and size data respectively.  Note that the tooltip displayed can be customized to display the formatted color and size values, minimums, and maximums.

Summary

Combining the color and size changing behavior of the MicroHeatMapPresenter control allows you to combine multiple instances into an engaging heat map.  A heat map using color and size changing markers displays a lot of data while still being easy to understand and feeling intuitive.  The MicroHeatMapPresenter control allows for the customization of the color gradient to choose from, the maximum size to render at, the shape to render, and the tooltip to display.  These many options allow for the creation of unique and effective heat maps that are excellent at displaying many kinds of data.

Heat maps are now available as of the latest WPF and Silverlight maintenance releases.  Download an evaluation and try them out!

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WPF Controls 2012.1 Build 562 Released

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Friday, July 20, 2012 at 12:41pm

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WPF Studio 2012.1 build 562 has been released and is now available for download. Several very nice new controls and enhancements are part of this build.

This build has the following major new features:

  • Micro Charts: Added new MicroHeatMapPresenter control that facilitates the creation of heat maps where each cell renders color and/or size differences to reflect data values.
  • SyntaxEditor: Added a new NavigableSymbolSelector control, which can be used to provide type/member drop-down support for a language.
  • SyntaxEditor: Added a INavigableSymbolProvider language service, related types and samples.
  • SyntaxEditor .NET Languages Add-on: Implemented an INavigableSymbolProvider service on both the C# and VB languages, allowing for NavigableSymbolSelector support.
  • All: Improved designer support compatibility with VS 2012.

See the announcement post for the detailed list of enhancements and updates.

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WinForms Controls 2012.1 Build 302 Released

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Friday, July 20, 2012 at 11:47am

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WinForms Studio 2012.1 build 302 has been released and is now available for download. Several enhancements and bug fixes are part of this build, along with improved VS 2012 support.

See the announcement post for the detailed list of enhancements and updates.

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Silverlight Controls 2012.1 Build 132 Released

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Friday, July 20, 2012 at 8:37am

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Silverlight Studio 2012.1 build 132 has been released and is now available for download.  Several very nice new controls and enhancements are part of this build.

This build has the following major new features:

  • Micro Charts: Added new MicroHeatMapPresenter control that facilitates the creation of heat maps where each cell renders color and/or size differences to reflect data values.
  • SyntaxEditor: Added a new NavigableSymbolSelector control, which can be used to provide type/member drop-down support for a language.
  • SyntaxEditor: Added a INavigableSymbolProvider language service, related types and samples.
  • SyntaxEditor .NET Languages Add-on: Implemented an INavigableSymbolProvider service on both the C# and VB languages, allowing for NavigableSymbolSelector support.
  • All: Improved designer support compatibility with VS 2012.

See the announcement post for the detailed list of enhancements and updates.

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Heat Maps Part 2 - Size Changing Behavior

by Avatar Bill Henning (Actipro)
Thursday, July 19, 2012 at 8:02am

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In the previous Heat Maps post, we introduced the MicroHeatMapPresenter control and talked about its color changing abilities. In today's post, we'll look at the MicroHeatMapPresenter's ability to change size to display data values.

Size-Based Heat Maps

As discussed in the previous post, the MicroHeatMapPresenter control is designed to be a single cell in a larger heat map.  Heat maps, in addition to cells that change color, can also use cells that change size to represent data.  MicroHeatMapPresenter controls can be customized to have a different shape and render at varying sizes in order to display smaller and larger values in a data set.

HeatMapSize
In the example above 16 separate MicroHeatMapPresenter controls have been customized to render as circles and change size in order to display the net worth of four companies over time.  Each control has been customized to be given the same maximum size, minimum, and maximum values.  Each control also has a unique value that it uses with the minimum and maximum values to find what percentage of the maximum size it should render as.

Summary

The size changing behavior provides a very intuitive way to display data values.  Larger values displayed with larger markers creates a chart that gets the information to the audience as fast and with as little confusion as possible.  In addition, many different built-in shapes are available for customization, giving even more options to specialize the chart to make it easier to understand and/or better display the data.

UPDATE:  Heat maps are now available as of the latest WPF and Silverlight maintenance releases.

In our next blog post, we'll take a look at combining color and size changing effects to render two sets of data.

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