3D Charts Without the WPF 3D Engine

Abstract

In the previous chapter, I demonstrated how to create a variety of 3D surface charts using the WPF 3D engine. However, it is difficult to implement professional 3D charts based on the default WPF 3D framework. In this chapter, you’ll learn how to use a direct projection approach, without using the WPF 3D engine, to create more sophisticated 3D charts with more features, including colormaps and colorbars. I’ll start with a description of the coordinate system used for 3D charts and show you how to create 3D coordinate axes, tick marks, axis labels, and gridlines. The 3D coordinate system used in 3D charts is the most fundamental part of creating 3D chart applications because it involves almost all of the matrix operations and transformations used to create 3D charts.