Box Plot Series

May 28, 2021
5 minutes to read

The Box Plot (also called Box-and-Whisker Plot) chart is used to analyze statistic-driven data points. To draw a Box Plot point, pass the Min, Quartile1, Median, Quartile3, and Max parameters. You can also display a set of Outliers and a Mean value (optional).

Run Demo: Box Plot

Chart Type Characteristics

The table below lists the main box plot chart characteristics:

Feature	Value
Series view type	BoxPlotSeries2D
Diagram type	XYDiagram2D
Number of arguments per series point	1
Number of values per series point	6 values and an array of outliers

The following image shows the Box Plot chart elements:

You can also display the series Mean line. Set the BoxPlotSeries2D.MeanLineVisible property to true for this:

Limitations

The Box Plot series view does not support series labels.
Box plot points cannot be aggregated.

Create a Box Plot Chart

The following example creates a Box Plot chart with three points:

Add a chart to a WPF project.
Add an XYDiagram2D object to the chart.
Add a BoxPlotSeries2D object to the diagram. Specify the series data source.
Use the following properties to specify data members for the series:

Format the Crosshair Label

Use the XYSeries2D.CrosshairLabelPattern property to format the crosshair label text.

The Chart Control provides the following placeholders that you can use in patterns:

Placeholder	Description
{BP_MIN}	Displays the Box Plot point’s Minimum value.
{BP_Q1}	Displays the Box Plot point’s First Quartile value.
{BP_MDN}	Displays the Box Plot point’s Median value.
{BP_AVG}	Displays the Box Plot point’s Mean value.
{BP_Q3}	Displays the Box Plot point’s Third Quartile value.
{BP_MAX}	Displays the Box Plot point’s Maximum value.

XAML

xaml

<dxc:BoxPlotSeries2D CrosshairLabelPattern="{}{A}&#x0a;Min: {BP_MIN}&#x0a;Q1: {BP_Q1}&#x0a;Q3: {BP_Q3}&#x0a;Max: {BP_MAX}"/>

You can use format specifiers to format the placeholders’ values. For example, the “{BP_Q1:f1}” pattern displays the First Quartile value with one digit after the comma.

Change Chart Appearance

This section explains how to modify the Box Plot chart’s appearance.

The BoxPlotSeries2D class exposes the following appearance settings for the Box Plot chart:

BoxPlotSeries2D.CapWidthPercentage - Gets or sets the cap width of a Box Plot series point as percentage.
BoxPlotSeries2D.BoxWidth - Gets or sets the Box Plot’s point width measured in axis units.
XYSeries.Brush - Gets or sets the color of the XY-series.
BoxPlotSeries2D.MeanLineStyle - Specifies Mean line style settings. See the following help topic for more information about line style settings: LineStyle.
XAML

xaml

<dxc:BoxPlotSeries2D MeanLineVisible="True"
                     CapWidthPercentage="50" 
                     BoxWidth="0.5"
                     Brush="MediumSeaGreen">
    <dxc:BoxPlotSeries2D.MeanLineStyle>
        <dxc:LineStyle Thickness="2" DashCap="Flat">
            <dxc:LineStyle.DashStyle>
                <DashStyle Dashes="2 1 5 1"/>
            </dxc:LineStyle.DashStyle>
        </dxc:LineStyle>
    </dxc:BoxPlotSeries2D.MeanLineStyle>
</dxc:BoxPlotSeries2D>