Grid Surface Chart Gallery for SharePoint

Chart Types

Scales, Axes, and Walls

Presentation

Functions and Line Studies

Panels

Grid Surface Chart

Grid surface charts are a type of data visualization that represents three-dimensional data, where data points are organized in a grid. The data points in each row and column in the grid share the same x and z values, whereas the y value is specified per data point. A variation of the grid surface allows the user to specify a color for each data point thus adding a fourth dimension to the plot. This type of chart is often used to visualize continuous functions or data sets that vary across an area of interest, such as terrain data, surface temperature data, and others.

Grid Surface Chart Gallery

Grid Surface Chart

The Grid Surface chart displays a surface with user-defined elevation values for each data point and with X and Z coordinates from a rectangular grid. With the Grid Surface chart, you can create visualizations of three-dimensional data which have many applications in the areas of geography, engineering, physics, and others.

Wireframe Surface Chart

This image demonstrates wire frame surface rendering. The surface filling is disabled and the frame style is "Mesh" - this way only mesh lines are displayed.

Surface Chart with texture

The Grid surface series offers a range of customizable FillEffect options for the surface, including images, gradients, advanced gradients, and patterns. Additionally, users can modify material properties such as Specular Color, Emissive Color, and Shininess to achieve their desired visual effect. This image shows a grid surface chart with applied texture.

Projected Contour Chart

This example demonstrates a contour chart displayed with the Grid Surface Series. Below - the surface is rendered in flat mode and above - with the actual surface elevation. This surface render mode allows you to easily create heat maps in 3D and use them as underlays or overlays of other 3D content.

Grid Surface with empty data points

Support for empty data points is a feature allowing the grid to contain areas that do not contain valid data and therefore should not be rendered.

Contour Chart

This image demonstrates a contour chart displayed with the Grid Surface Series. The chart uses orthogonal projection with camera elevation of 90 degrees, the lighting is disabled and the surface is rendered in flat mode.

Waves

Here the Grid Surface chart is used to represent waves.

Lidar Data

A grid surface chart displaying LiDAR data for a region nearby Calgary, Canada. The surface chart automatically extracts the contour levels according to the specified height color map (palette). The chart leverages the embedded surface series support for importing LiDAR data files in .LAS, .LAZ, and ASC grid formats.

Sample Table Format

Y \ X	0	1	2	3
0	42	57	68	51
1	63	81	94	72
2	55	76	88	64
3	37	49	61	45

The data for a Grid Surface chart is organized as a table, where each cell contains an elevation value.

The row and column headers represent the corresponding grid indexes (0, 1, 2, 3), defining the position of each point on the X and Y axes. The elevation values determine the height of the surface at each grid position, which is then used to create the connected three-dimensional surface.

Best Practices for Using Surface Charts

Choose the Right Chart Type
Surface charts are ideal for visualizing data with variable elevations and regularly spaced X/Z coordinates. If the data does not meet these criteria you can consider using the Mesh or Triangulated surface charts.

Use Appropriate Lighting
Lighting can significantly impact the appearance of Surface charts. Use lighting that highlights the important aspects of the data, such as areas of high or low value that don't obscure any important details.

Simplify the Data
Grid Surface charts can contain millions of data points, and rendering such a large number of data points, especially interactively is very computationally expensive. You can use various methods to simplify the rendered data set like binning or clustering, which are built into the chart.

Use Appropriate Labeling
Labeling ensures the viewer understands the presented data. Label the axes and provide a legend explaining the meaning of any color schemes used in the chart.

.NET Components

BI and Reporting Tools

.NET Components

BI and Reporting Tools

.NET Components

BI and Reporting Tools

Additional Resources

Grid Surface Chart for SharePoint

Chart Types

Scales, Axes, and Walls

Presentation

Functions and Line Studies

Panels

Grid Surface Chart

Grid Surface Chart Gallery

Grid Surface Chart

Wireframe Surface Chart

Surface Chart with texture

Projected Contour Chart

Grid Surface with empty data points

Contour Chart

Waves

Lidar Data

Sample Table Format

Best Practices for Using Surface Charts

Next Steps