A ProEssentials v11 WinUI 3 .NET 10 demonstration of a complete 3D subsurface visualization with animated roller-coaster style camera flythrough down multiple wellbore trajectories using Pe3doWinUI and Direct3D.
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A full implementation of Example 403 — 3D Surface with Custom Polygon Colors from the ProEssentials library, extended into a standalone wellbore visualization application.
The chart-configuration code is identical to the WPF and WinForms versions of this example. The ProEssentials API does not change between interfaces; only the window plumbing differs.
Press keys 0–9 to fly down any of the wellbore trajectories.
The camera moves point-by-point along the selected well path while simultaneously rotating 1° per frame — producing a roller-coaster style descent through the subsurface. Press the same key again to return to the normal overhead view.
Key 0 — fly down well 0 (press again to exit)
Key 1 — fly down well 1
...
Key 9 — fly down well 9
Click the chart once first so it holds keyboard focus — the ProEssentials WinUI
control is a focusable XAML Control and takes focus on left-press.
This is implemented using SetViewingAt() — a ProEssentials Pe3doWinUI
function that repositions the Direct3D camera to look at any 3D coordinate
in the scene:
// Each timer tick (25ms) advances one step along the well path
Pe3do1.PeFunction.SetViewingAt(x, y, z);
Pe3do1.PeAnnotation.Graph.HighLightAnnotationIndex = currentIndex;
Pe3do1.PeUserInterface.Scrollbar.DegreeOfRotation += 1; // spiral rotation
Pe3do1.Invalidate();The animation is driven by a DispatcherQueueTimer (WinUI's replacement for
WPF's DispatcherTimer). Each tick pauses while a mouse button is held, so the
timer and the drag logic never both drive DegreeOfRotation at the same moment.
- 200×200 grid extracted from a 1500×1500 real elevation dataset (
terrain2.bin) - A random region is selected each run — the terrain is different every launch
- Shaded surface with contour color scale (BlueCyanGreenYellowBrownWhite)
- Contour projection lines on the floor plane
- Concentric custom-colored rings painted using
PointColors[s,p] SurfaceNullDataGaps+NullDataValue=80creates a visible borehole void- Cyan polygon annotation marks the target zone boundary at surface
- Red ellipse annotations mark the target zone at depth (250ft, 500ft intervals)
- Multiple well paths loaded from
DirData1.txt(tab-delimited survey data) - Rendered as 3D tubes using
LinesOrTubes.AllTubes - White color markers indicate formation boundaries at depth intervals
- Each well labeled "Well 0", "Well 1"... at its terminal depth
Pe3doWinUI — the ProEssentials Direct3D 3D chart object. Handles all
scene rendering, lighting, rotation, and camera management in hardware. The
WinUI control types carry a WinUI suffix so they can share one namespace with
the WinForms and WPF types.
SetViewingAt(x, y, z) — repositions the Direct3D camera focus point
at runtime. Used here to drive the flythrough animation by moving the
camera along annotation coordinates each timer tick.
PointColors[s,p] — per-polygon color override. Paints individual
surface polygons with custom colors independently of the contour scale —
used to create the target bullseye rings on the terrain.
LinesOrTubes.AllTubes — renders all line-type graph annotations as
3D tubes with configurable thickness, dramatically improving visual quality
for wellbore paths in a 3D scene.
SurfaceNullDataGaps + NullDataValue — removes surface polygons
at grid points equal to the null value, creating the visible borehole void.
Graph Annotation Types used in this example:
MediumSolidLine/LineContinue— defines 3D polyline paths (well trajectories)StartPoly/AddPolyPoint/EndPolygon— closed polygon (target boundary)AxisDirection/MajorMinorRadii/EllipseMedium/EllipseThin— 3D ellipsesPointer— labeled pointer at well terminal depth
PeCustomTrackingDataText — custom tooltip for surface data points
(shows elevation value and grid coordinates).
PeCustomTrackingOtherText — custom tooltip for non-data hot spots.
Fires when hovering over well tube annotations (shows 3D XYZ coordinates).
CustomMenuText / PeCustomMenu — adds a custom item to the
right-click context menu with checkmark state — "Zoom Rotate on Center"
toggles between ViewingMode.Center and ViewingMode.DataLocation.
Freeze / Unfreeze — suspends rendering during initialization to
prevent partial renders flickering on screen during property setup.
Force3dxVerticeRebuild / Force3dxAnnotVerticeRebuild — forces
the Direct3D engine to recompute all vertex buffers on next render.
Required after programmatic annotation changes.
| Input | Action |
|---|---|
| Keys 0–9 | Fly down well 0–9 (press same key to exit) |
| Left drag | Rotate the 3D scene |
| Shift + drag | Translate / pan |
| Middle drag | Rotate the light source |
| Mouse wheel | Zoom in/out |
| Double-click | Start/stop auto-rotation |
| Right-click | Context menu |
| File | Contents |
|---|---|
terrain2.bin |
2,250,000 Int32 elevation values — 1500×1500 grid |
DirData1.txt |
Tab-delimited wellbore survey coordinates (Y/Z/X per row) |
Both files are copied to the output directory automatically on build.
- Visual Studio 2026 with the .NET desktop development and Windows application development workloads
- .NET 10 SDK
- Internet connection for NuGet restore
1. Clone this repository
2. Open WellBoreChartWinUI.sln in Visual Studio 2026
3. Build → Rebuild Solution (NuGet restore is automatic)
4. Press F5
5. Click the chart, then press keys 0–9 to fly down wellbore trajectories
The ProEssentials calls are unchanged. Everything that moved is window plumbing:
No XAML designer — Visual Studio has no XAML designer for WinUI 3, in any
edition, including VS2026. The chart is declared in markup
(<pe:Pe3doWinUI x:Name="Pe3do1" />) rather than dragged from the Toolbox. This
is a Windows App SDK limitation, not a ProEssentials one, and it applies to every
WinUI control vendor.
Window sizing is code, not XAML — WinUI's Window is not a Control. It has
no Height/Width/MinWidth, no Loaded event and no Background.
SizeAndCenterWindow() sets the size with a Win32 MoveWindow call, and
UseLayoutRounding moves to the root Grid.
Chart Loaded event — ProEssentials initialization runs in the control's own
Loaded event (Pe3do1_Loaded). That was already the right place in WPF; in
WinUI it is the only place, because the window has no Loaded of its own.
Timer — DispatcherTimer becomes DispatcherQueueTimer, created from the
window's DispatcherQueue. Its Tick is a
TypedEventHandler<DispatcherQueueTimer, object>, so the handler signature
differs from the WPF one.
Key codes — WPF's Key enum put D0–D9 at 34–43. WinUI hands you a
Windows.System.VirtualKey, where Number0–Number9 are the Win32 codes 48–57.
Mouse and message box — MouseMove becomes PointerMoved, and
MessageBox.Show (WPF only) becomes a direct Win32 MessageBoxW call.
This project references
ProEssentials.Chart.Net10.WinUI
from nuget.org. Package restore is automatic on build.
The AnyCpu package embeds the native rendering engines inside the assembly and unpacks the one matching the running process at run time, so unlike the WPF sample there is no native DLL to copy or deploy alongside your app.
WinUI deploys differently than WPF and WinForms — worth knowing before you ship:
- A .NET app is not a single exe. Ship the entire build/publish output folder,
never a hand-picked subset.
terrain2.binandDirData1.txtmust sit beside the exe. - The target machine needs two runtimes: the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime and
the Windows App SDK Runtime. Alternatively publish self-contained with
-p:WindowsAppSDKSelfContained=true. - Your development machine already has both, so it will run from an under-filled folder. Always validate on a clean machine.
The nuget.org package is the evaluation build and draws an "Evaluating ProEssentials" watermark across the chart. A licensed installation replaces the assembly and the watermark goes away — everything else behaves identically.
- WinUI Quickstart — Simple Scientific Graph
- GigaPrime3D — 3D Surface Height Map (WinUI)
- WPF 3D Wellbore Flythrough — the WPF twin of this sample
- All Examples — GigasoftInc on GitHub
- Full Evaluation Download
- gigasoft.com
Example code is MIT licensed. ProEssentials requires a commercial license for continued use.