Chart Modifier 3D APIs
Within the SciChart Android SDK, ChartModifiers are the classes which can be added to a chart to give it a certain behaviour. In SciChart 3D, for instance, all zooming, panning operations, tooltips, legends and even selection of points or lines are handled by ChartModifierBase3D derived classes in the SciChart codebase.
There are many different 3D Chart Modifiers provided by SciChart and each one deserves an article by itself! This article is concerned with simply giving an overview of the modifiers and where you can find the examples in our SciChart Android Examples Suite which demonstrate them.
There are also several individual articles on the ChartModifier's and how to configure them in the SciChart Android. Those could be grouped like the following:
Zoom and Pan Modifiers 3D
The following modifiers can be used if you want to add zooming or panning behavior to a chart:
Modifier Name | Description |
---|---|
ZoomExtentsModifier3D | Resets the zoom to the data extents via the double-tapping. Available almost everywhere, e.g. see the Surface Mesh 3D Floor and Ceiling example. |
PinchZoomModifier3D | Zooms a chart in and out via the pinch and spread gestures correspondingly. Available almost everywhere, e.g. see the Logarithmic Axis 3D example. |
OrbitModifier3D | Performs the orbital motion of the camera performs giving the appearance of rotating the 3D world. Available almost everywhere, e,g. see the Ellipsoid Free Surface Chart 3D example. |
FreeLookModifier3D | Allows simple movement - Left, Right, Up or Down - of the chart camera imitating the free-look motion. Available almost everywhere, e.g. see the Bubble Chart 3D example. |
Interactivity Modifiers 3D
These modifiers allow to interact with chart series or inspect them:
Modifier Name | Description |
---|---|
VertexSelectionModifier3D | Provides selection of points via tapping on them. See the Select Scatter Point 3D Chart example. |
TooltipModifier3D | Provides a tooltip for the nearest point on a series under the finger. See the Series Tooltips 3D Chart example. |
Miscellaneous Modifiers 3D
Modifiers below are used as helpers and can be a useful addition to a chart:
Modifier Name | Description |
---|---|
ModifierGroup3D | Can be used to group chart modifiers together. This can useful in multi-chart scenarios, to unite ModifierGroups into one EventGroup of modifiers. If an Event occurs on a chart, it will be propagated to modifiers from other charts that are in the same EventGroup. |
LegendModifier3D | Allows to creates and configure a Legend for a 3D chart. See the Add Remove Series example. |
Note
To learn more about ChartModifiers 3D API, please read the Common ChartModifiers 3D Features section. To find out more about a specific 3D ChartModifier, please refer to a corresponding article about this Modifier type.
Adding a Chart Modifier 3D
All 3D Chart Modifiers are inherited from ChartModifierBase3D, conforms to the IChartModifier3D and are added to the ChartModifier3DCollection which is stored in the chartModifiers property. Please see the code below, to see how to add PinchZoomModifier3D to your SciChartSurface3D:
// Assume a surface has been created and configured somewhere
surface.getChartModifiers().add(new PinchZoomModifier3D());
Common Chart Modifier 3D Features
As mentioned above - all the 3D ChartModifiers provided by SciChart conforms to the IChartModifier3D protocol and derive from the ChartModifierBase3D class. These provide a powerful API which gives the full access to internals of a chart, axes and renderable series. It is a must that Custom Modifier 3D implement IChartModifier3D, and hence we recommend inheriting ChartModifierBase3D in such cases as well to get some base implementation for free.
Please see the list of common features below:
Feature | Description |
---|---|
getParentSurface() | Provides the ISciChartSurface3D which the modifier is attached to. See the isAttached() method below. |
getModifierSurface() | Returns the ModifierSurface from the parental SciChartSurface3D. It is used to place Views like tooltips, etc. onto it. |
isAttached() | Value which indicates whether a modifier is attached to a SciChartSurface3D or not. If it is - getParentSurface() property will return the corresponding instance of SciChartSurface3D. |
setIsEnabled(boolean isEnabled) | Allows to specify if a modifier should be available for interaction or not. |
setReceiveHandledEvents(boolean receiveHandledEvents) | Allows to specify whether a modifier should receive events handled by another modifier. |
ModifierGroup3D Features
The ModifierGroup3D allows grouping of modifiers. This can be useful if modifiers create a logical group within which they are handled together. For example, all modifiers inside a ModifierGroup3D can be enabled/disabled together via the setIsEnabled(boolean isEnabled) method on the ModifierGroup3D itself.
Also, this is useful in multi-chart scenarios. Several ModifierGroup3Ds can be united to share events between charts. This can be done by setMotionEventGroup(String eventGroup) to be the same for ModifierGroups which belong to different SciChartSurface3Ds.
Feature | Description |
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setMotionEventGroup(String eventGroup) | Allows to specify which MotionEventGroup this modifier goes in. It is used to share events between modifiers that belong to different surfaces. |
setChildModifiers(ChartModifier3DCollection childModifiers) | Assigns a collection of modifiers to a ModifierGroup 3D. Also a collection can be passed into the class constructor during creation. |