Each of the available chart implementations provides a set of properties. The properties of the chart define everything about a stand-alone chart. Chart properties do not define the integration of a Chart object into a chart element in a report design, such as binding a data set to a chart and a chart’s ultimate display size. A section later in this chapter describes how to set up a chart as an element in a report design.

The BIRT Chart Engine API supports changing chart properties. All charts have the properties that the Chart interface provides, such as dimension, which sets the appearance of the chart as two-dimensional, two-dimensional with depth, or three-dimensional, and plot, which is the area that contains the chart itself.

The ChartWithAxesImpl class implements the ChartWithAxes interface, which provides properties related to x-, y-, and for some chart types, z-axes.

The ChartWithoutAxesImpl class implements the ChartWithoutAxes interface, which provides properties for pie slices. The DialChartImpl class implements the ChartWithoutAxes and DialChart interfaces. DialChart supports the superimposition property that meter charts use.

Each interface provides getter and setter methods for its properties, and other methods if necessary. For example, for the dimension property, the Chart interface provides getDimension( ), setDimension( ), isSetDimension( ), and unsetDimension( ) methods.