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foundations

Dataviz

A chart is a readout, not an illustration. Hairlines, flat fills, whole-pixel coordinates, and the value written as a number on the same screen.

PLOT — LINE, AREA, STEPqueue depth / 12h
0255075100T-12:00nowlimit 90
queue depthsla target — stepprojected — not measured
linear and step only
A spline invents readings between the points it was given. Interpolation that produces values nobody measured is a lie told in a readable typeface.
RULES
coordinates
whole pixels
rendering
crispEdges
stroke
1 px
point mark
square, 3px
dash
4 3
void band
texture, not tint
series cap
5, then stop coloring
area fill
quiet grade
WHY SVGlayer 2

Markup and tokens cover everything without a continuous scale — bars, stacks, sparklines, meters. A line, area, step or scatter needs real scale arithmetic, so it is drawn in SVG. SVG rather than canvas for two reasons: it reads these tokens directly, and it prints at device resolution, which matters because this system has a print surface.

pagedatavizthemelighttokenscopy2026srclinknominal