What is the best WPF Graphing control?

Question

Our latest project is using WPF for a rich client and we need a graphing tool that makes the best looking graphs that also has the ability to do the following with the graph:

• Line Graphs with the ability to add data points

• Hot spots on the graph that allows for interaction

• Ability to add new data on the fly and have the graph auto refresh (Like a stock graph updating in real time)
• Bonus: The ability to add annotations to a graph. We plan on doing this programatically, however if anyone knows of a graphing tool that does this automatically would be great!
• Themes

Answer 1

Infragistics xamChart is quite excellent, if a bit spendy and with somewhat of a learning curve.

Answer 2

The controls originally developed for the Silverlight Toolkit are now available in the WPF Toolkit, more information from David Anson's blog here. Figure I might add the MSFT solution in here.

It doesn't support everything you're looking for, but being open source, out there, and available, I wanted to at least point you towards it.

The charting controls do offer the ability to retemplate for interactivity, have selection events, use ObservableCollections (real-time stock data: just push new data on), etc.

• Big list of resources on the Silverlight/WPF charting controls
• Download the WPF Toolkit

Answer 3

The Visifire graphing libraries look great! Between the looks, live updating, and the fact that they're open source, I think it's hard to find a better option.