Helix Vizforge

New here? Start with the Installation and the no-code quick start. Prefer code? Jump to the code quick start or the Scripting API.

⤓ Installation

Import once, add a component (or open the welcome window). No setup wizard required.

Requirements

• Unity 6.0 LTS (6000.0 or newer).
• URP recommended for world-space / 3D charts; Built-in works for screen-space charts.
• UGUI (com.unity.ugui) — the default chart surface renders on a Canvas.
• No third-party dependencies. CSV/JSON parsing, statistics, FFT, regression and SVG/PNG export are all in-package.

What gets installed

Assets/Helix/
  Runtime/        // Core, Data, Viz pipeline, Charts (28 + 3D generators),
                  //   Rendering (UGui / UIToolkit / WorldSpace), Theme, Scales,
                  //   Scientific, Financial, Analytics, BI, Telemetry, Interaction, Export
  Editor/         // Welcome window, Chart Wizard, ChartView / Dataset / Theme inspectors
  Demos/          // the interactive showcase scene (every feature, module by module)
  Documentation/  // You are here
  Tests/          // EditMode + PlayMode (run headless via Unity -runTests)Project

🖱 Quick Start: No Code

A complete, data-bound chart from the Inspector — no scripts.

⚡ Quick Start: Code

The same engine via a fluent builder — data, type, axes, theme, render.

using UnityEngine;
using Helix.Data;
using Helix.Charts;
using Helix.Theming;

public sealed class FirstChart : MonoBehaviour
{
    void Start()
    {
        // A Canvas to draw on (Screen Space - Overlay).
        var canvas = new GameObject("Canvas", typeof(Canvas),
            typeof(UnityEngine.UI.CanvasScaler), typeof(UnityEngine.UI.GraphicRaycaster))
            .GetComponent<Canvas>();
        canvas.renderMode = RenderMode.ScreenSpaceOverlay;

        // Some data, built inline.
        var data = Dataset.Inline("sales")
            .Numbers("x", 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
            .Numbers("y", 42, 55, 38, 61, 47, 58);

        // data -> bar -> axes -> theme -> render.
        ChartView.Create(canvas.transform, "My Chart")
            .WithData(data)
            .Bar("x", "y")
            .Axes(true)
            .Themed(Theme.Dark())
            .Build();   // Build() calls Render() for you.
    }
}C#

Swap .Bar(…) for .Line, .Scatter, .Area, .Spline, .Step or .Sparkline; for any other type use .Chart(new PieGenerator{ YColumn = "y" }). See the Scripting API.

📊 Chart Catalog

28 two-dimensional chart types plus three 3D types, all from one ChartView.

🎨 Render Backends

One tessellation core, three ways to draw — the same chart, identical pixels.

📐 Scales & Axes

Linear, log, symlog, time and band scales with automatic, formatter-driven ticks.

• Scales: LinearScale, LogScale, SymlogScale (spans zero), TimeScale, BandScale (categorical), power.
• Formatters: plain number, SI-prefix (k / M), currency, percent, date-time — chosen automatically per scale, or set explicitly.
• Axes: toggle X / Y axes, gridlines and tick labels independently on ChartView (DrawAxes, ShowXAxis, ShowYAxis, ShowGrid, ShowAxisLabels).

🗃 Datasets & Import

A columnar data model with transforms and CSV / JSON import.

Dataset

A Dataset is a set of co-indexed typed columns (DataSeries): numbers, categories, text, booleans and time. Build one inline, import it, or author a Dataset asset.

var ds = Dataset.Inline("sales")
    .Categories("month", "Jan", "Feb", "Mar")
    .Numbers("sales", 42, 55, 38);C#

CSV / JSON import

Use the Dataset asset inspector's Import CSV button, or in code:

Dataset a = CsvImporter.Parse(csvText);   // delimiter auto-detected
Dataset b = JsonImporter.ParseRecords(jsonText);C#

Transforms

Chain non-destructive transforms over a dataset: FilterTransform, SortTransform, AggregateTransform, BinTransform, map and join. Each returns a new dataset.

🃰 Theming & Palettes

Design-token themes, series palettes and accessibility helpers.

• Presets: Theme.Dark(), Light(), Scientific(), Financial(), HighContrast(), ColorBlindSafe() (Okabe–Ito).
• Theme asset: Assets → Create → Helix → Theme — pick a preset, edit tokens (background, surface, axis, grid, text, stroke widths) and series colors in the inspector, then drop it into a ChartView's Theme slot.
• Accessibility: a WCAG contrast read-out and a color-blind-safe palette ship in the box.

🖰 No-Code Workflow

Everything a chart needs, configured by clicking.

The ChartView inspector has two parts:

• Chart Setup — a Chart Type dropdown, Data (Dataset asset) and Theme (Theme asset) slots, X / Y column pickers sourced from the assigned dataset, a value-columns list for stacked/grouped bars, and Auto-build on Play.
• Axes & Animation — draw-axes toggle (with per-axis / gridline / tick-label sub-toggles) and a reveal slider.

Changing any field rebuilds and re-renders live in the Scene/Game view; a Rebuild / Preview button forces a refresh. At runtime the chart builds itself on Start.

🔧 Wizard & Assets

Menus and inspectors that scaffold and author without code.

🔬 Scientific

Fitting, smoothing, spectra and statistical overlays.

• Curve fits with R²: linear, polynomial, exponential, power, logarithmic.
• Smoothing: moving-average and Savitzky–Golay.
• FFT power spectrum (radix-2), marching-squares contours, confidence bands and error bars.
• Analytics: k-means clustering, exponential / linear forecasting, cohort retention.

💵 Financial

Price views and the standard technical indicators.

• Price: candlestick, OHLC bars, volume.
• Indicators: SMA, EMA, Bollinger bands, RSI, MACD.

📈 BI & Dashboards

Pivot, KPIs, drill-down and cross-filtered dashboards.

• Pivot tables with Sum / Mean / Min / Max / Count (and more).
• KPI scorecards with value, target, delta and on-target state.
• Drill-down through dimension levels and cross-filter that drops rows from the rendered geometry.

📡 Telemetry & Interaction

Live data and pointer interaction.

• Telemetry: allocation-free ring-buffer time series, a TelemetryHub with sources (FPS, frame time, memory) and edge-triggered threshold alerts.
• Interaction: pan/zoom view windows, pointer hit-testing, tooltips and a selection model.

💾 Export

Headless, dependency-free export to images, vectors and data.

• PNG (CPU rasterizer with a built-in bitmap font) and SVG (vector).
• CSV and JSON data export.
• Managed-only and WebGL-compatible; on WebGL, saves trigger a browser download.

📙 Scripting API

The few entry points you'll use most.

ChartView

// Fluent builder
ChartView.Create(parent)
    .WithData(ds)
    .Line("x", "y")        // or .Bar / .Scatter / .Area / .Spline / .Step
    .Chart(new PieGenerator{ YColumn = "y" })  // any catalog type
    .Axes(true)
    .Themed(Theme.Dark())
    .Build();

// No-code: build from inspector fields (data asset + kind + columns)
view.RebuildFromInspector();
IGeometryGenerator g = ChartView.GeneratorFor(ChartKind.Bar, "x", "y", null);C#

💡 Troubleshooting

The usual first checks.

❓ FAQ

Common questions.

📬 Support

Need help? We're here for you.