Author: Jack Xu
Publisher: Apress, 2009
Pages: 600
ISBN: 978-1430224815
Aimed at: WPF developers who need to produce graphs and charts
Rating: 3
Pros: Lots of charts in 2D and 3D
Cons: Not much explanation of techniques or code
Reviewed by: David Conrad

This really is just a library of routines that create graphs and charts of all kinds turned into book form. The listings are very long and complete and hardly explained at all. There is some discussion of the basics of graphics and even the statistics that are used as part of the charts, but this is fairly insignificant compared to the number of lines of code presented.

The book starts off with a brief account of XAML and then moves on to more general issues such as transformation matrices and so on. There follows two chapters on general graphics in WPF. The coverage of WPF graphics is enough to follow the rest of the book but it doesn't tell you anything more than the documentation and fails to motivate or explain any concepts.

From this point on the rest of the book is a catalog of charts in 2D and 3D. It seems to be more intent of covering the ground and providing some sort of chart library than it is on explaining the how and why. Of course, if what you are looking for is a book of listings and ready to use charting code then this might be just what you want - although this does raise the question of why this is presented in book form when an open source project or paid for code would achieve the same results. I should add that in book form it is good value at 600 pages in a very small font - it certainly crams in the material.

At the time of writing this review the code wasn't available for download at the Apress website and if you want it from the Author's website you have to register and answer some questions relating to the book to prove that you have bought it.

Overall if you are looking for a book that explains how WPF graphics work and provides insight into how you can use them to create graphs and charts then this isn't the book you need.