Building chart content

Building a chart involves more than selecting a visual form for each value. The same observations can appear as independent elements or become part of a continuous shape, range, group, or layered composition. How we declare the content determines which of these relationships Swift Charts preserves in the finished chart.

Some of those decisions are explicit, such as choosing the geometry used to represent an observation. Others emerge from the structure of the complete composition. Series identity determines which observations belong together, collection order determines how connected shapes are formed, and declaration order affects how overlapping elements are drawn. Organizing code into loops, groups, or reusable components does not necessarily separate these chart-wide relationships.

This chapter explains how to build chart content with these behaviors in mind. We’ll examine how marks and vectorized plots contribute to a composition, how different geometric forms represent observations, and how identity and order turn individual elements into a coherent visualization.