TSurfaceSeries takes a long time

[Alexey Gerasimovich]

I've tried to use TSurfaceSeries in my application but I see it's impossible.

I have some points on (x,y,height). As I understand right TSurfaceSeries use y-coordinate as a height. Ok, I add points by AddXYZ() where I send height instead of y and vice versa. It means I write the following:

AddXYZ(x, height, z);

Right now my points have coordinates in range of -5000 till 5000. But this range can vary. If I have the only point (0,0,0) I have no problems, but even I try to add one another point (1700,1200,0) (0 is a height) the application starts to make something, it gets a lot of memory and all my system almost freezes. The only way to stop it close the application by the Task Manager.

What is wrong here? Why does it happen?

[Marjan]

Hi, Alexey.

but even I try to add one another point (1700,1200,0)

Hmm... You can't construct a surface cell from only two points. By definition you need four points to define surface cell (rectangle).
Here are couple of rules for surface series:

1) When using surface series, first thing you should do is make sure your data forms a grid (to be more precise, your x and z values form a grid).
2) Next, you have to define the value ("height") i.e. y=y(x,z) for *every* point in grid. An analogue task would be to have a m*n matrix (where m=number of points in x direction, n number of points in z direction) and then define *all* matrix cells (for every row and column).
3) When populating surface series with data, additional (memory and speed related) limitations apply : the number of points in x or z direction cannot exceed 2000.

If your data doesn't conform with above requirements, you have two options:
1) Generate grid data by using linear interpolation (I think there is an example of this available in TeeChart demo)
2) Use TTriSurfaceSeries to plot y=y(x,z). This series type doesn't have above limitations as it uses the Voronoi algorithm to construct surface.

[Alexey Gerasimovich]

Hi, Marjan.

Hmm... You can't construct a surface cell from only two points. By definition you need four points to define surface cell (rectangle).
Here are couple of rules for surface series:

Thanks for the answer. I should describe my situation. Actually I've got irregular grid. It means my (x,y) points lie not on grid nodes, they can have any coordinates, not integer.

In the help I see that I can try to set IrregularGrid property to true. With this setting the component works much faster, I see no such freezing. But I see no surface also I see hints only.

Maybe I use wrong component? What do you think, will this TTreSurfaceSeries solve my problem or not?