Creating an area chart

Area charts are usually used in place of line charts when we want to stack multiple results on top of each other. They can also be used to enhance the visual appeal of the chart in certain circumstances.

This recipe will present an example where the area chart is used for an enhanced visual appeal: displaying altitude data.

Let's say we need to visualize the altitude of a 8-km downhill hike succeeded by 12 km of flat walking. We would also like to mark the "mountain" portion of the chart. Finally, we would like the area below the altitude line to be filled in a way reminiscent of color relief maps with the color green for low, yellow for medium, and white for high-altitude.

Getting ready

We'll also use the Flot chart library ...

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