Chart areas are chart components that are used to plot a chart's data. They are either 2D or 3D, and include the plotting area as well as tick marks and axis labels. A Chart control can have an unlimited number of ChartArea objects. Chart areas can also be overlayed on top of one another.
Chart areas are either 2-dimensional or 3-dimensional. This is set using the Area3DStyle property. The figure below shows the effect of enabling 3D on a bar chart.
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Chart areas, like many other Chart elements, support a wide variety of appearances including the following:
- Gradient colors, with a variety of styles.
- Hatching, with a variety of patterns.
- Background images.
- Transparency, set using an alpha value.
Chart areas by default are automatically positioned and sized within the chart picture. Also, multiple chart areas can be aligned with one another by setting which chart area to align to. The criteria used for the alignment can also be specified.
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Chart area objects have X and Y axis cursors associated with them, and these cursors allow chart readers to zoom in and out of data views. Zooming and scrolling are enabled at the axis level. See the figure below for an example of scrolling on the X axis.
Multiple chart areas can overlay one another. This allows for: