X-Ray Mode

X-Ray Mode makes the invisible visible. It overlays color-coded rectangles on your chart showing how each time period was classified — revealing the structural pattern that drives swing detection.

While swing labels show you where turning points occurred, X-Ray shows you what happened between them. It's the difference between seeing the peaks and valleys on a map versus seeing the entire terrain.

What It Looks Like

When enabled, translucent colored rectangles appear behind the price bars. Each rectangle represents one complete period at the selected timeframe, spanning from the first bar of the period to the last bar. The color tells you how that period was classified.

Weekly X-Ray Mode on a daily chart — each colored rectangle represents one trading week, classified by its relationship to the previous week.

Rectangle Anatomy

Each rectangle has four visual properties:

Horizontal span: From the first bar of the period to the last bar. A weekly rectangle on a daily chart spans Monday's bar through Friday's bar. A monthly rectangle spans the first through last trading day of the month.

Vertical span: From the period's lowest low to its highest high — the full price range of that period.

Fill color: Indicates the period's classification (see color table below).

Border: A colored outline around the rectangle. Each timeframe has its own configurable border color, which helps distinguish overlapping rectangles when multiple timeframes have X-Ray enabled simultaneously.

Border style: Completed periods have solid borders. The currently forming (in-progress) period has a dashed border, signaling that its classification is not yet final.

What the Colors Mean

All fill colors are independently configurable in the X-Ray settings (Group ⑧). The defaults listed above work well on both light and dark chart themes.

X-Ray color legend — each classification has a distinct color for instant visual identification.

Reading X-Ray Patterns

The real value of X-Ray Mode emerges when you read sequences of rectangles left to right, like reading a sentence. Each rectangle is a word; the color sequence tells the story.

Trend

A sequence of green (HH) rectangles shows an uptrend at that timeframe level — each period made a new high above the previous one. A sequence of red (LL) rectangles shows a downtrend. The longer the sequence, the more sustained the trend.

Reversal

A transition from green to red (or red to green) marks where the trend changed direction. This is exactly where the indicator places a swing label. X-Ray shows you the structural moment that triggered the label.

Consolidation

Blue (IB) rectangles appearing within a trend mean price is pausing — the period stayed entirely inside the prior period's range. Inside Bars don't change the swing direction. Seeing one or two blue rectangles mid-trend is common — a brief consolidation before continuation. Seeing many in a row suggests the market is range-bound at that timeframe.

Expansion Event

A white (OB) rectangle signals range expansion — price broke out in both directions during that period. How this resolves depends on the OB Continuation Mode setting. White rectangles often appear at inflection points where the market is deciding on a new direction.

False Signal

A yellow rectangle warns that what appeared to be a breakout (Outside Bar) was not confirmed by the closing price. These are potential trap signals — the range expanded but the close didn't follow through. Useful for identifying situations where aggressive participants may have been caught on the wrong side.

In-Progress

The rightmost rectangle for each timeframe is typically gray with a dashed border, representing the current period still forming. As new bars arrive, the rectangle updates in real-time — its vertical span grows if price makes new highs or lows within the period. Once the period completes, the dashed border becomes solid and the gray fill transitions to the appropriate classification color.

The in-progress rectangle updates in real-time as new bars arrive, then solidifies with its classification color when the period completes.

Common Visual Patterns

These patterns appear frequently and are worth recognizing:

Clean Uptrend → Exhaustion → Reversal

What you see: A sequence of green (HH) rectangles that progressively narrow in height, followed by a blue (IB) rectangle, then a red (LL) rectangle.

What it means: The uptrend was losing momentum — each successive HH covered less range. Price then contracted (IB), suggesting indecision, and finally reversed (LL). The narrowing green rectangles visualize the trend running out of energy before the reversal.

Consolidation Breakout

What you see: Two or three blue (IB) rectangles in a row, followed by a green (HH) or red (LL) rectangle.

What it means: The market compressed for multiple periods, building energy within a tightening range, then broke out decisively in one direction.

OB Resolution

What you see: A white (OB) rectangle followed by either green (if the OB resolved as continuation of an uptrend) or red (if it resolved as reversal).

What it means: The expansion event created ambiguity, and the following period clarified the direction. The color after the OB tells you how the market resolved the indecision.

False Breakout → Reversal

What you see: A yellow (False OB) rectangle followed by a red (LL) rectangle in what had been an uptrend.

What it means: What appeared to be a continuation breakout was a trap — the close didn't confirm. The following period then reversed, confirming that the false signal was indeed the beginning of a trend change.

Common X-Ray patterns: exhaustion (narrowing trend), consolidation breakout, OB resolution, and false breakout reversal.

Multi-Timeframe X-Ray

X-Ray can be enabled for multiple timeframes simultaneously. When it is, rectangles from different timeframes overlap — larger timeframes produce wider rectangles that encompass multiple smaller-timeframe rectangles.

For example, one monthly X-Ray rectangle on a daily chart spans approximately 20 trading days. Within that single monthly rectangle, you'd see about 4 weekly rectangles. This nesting reveals how the weekly classification pattern builds the monthly classification.

Per-timeframe border colors help distinguish overlapping rectangles. If Weekly X-Ray uses a green border and Monthly uses blue, you can visually separate the layers even where they overlap.

That said, enabling X-Ray for more than two timeframes simultaneously can get visually busy. The recommended approach is to start with one timeframe and add a second only when you need to see the relationship between two specific timeframe levels.

Multi-timeframe X-Ray — weekly rectangles (green border) nest inside monthly rectangles (blue border), showing how lower timeframe structure builds higher timeframe classification.

Customization Options

All X-Ray settings are in Group ⑧ of the settings panel.

Master Toggle and Per-Timeframe Toggles

The defaults (Weekly and Monthly) provide a good starting point — they show the two most common higher timeframe structures without overwhelming the chart.

Fill Colors

Each classification has its own configurable fill color:

If the defaults don't work with your chart theme (for example, green rectangles on a green-background chart), adjust them. The colors are fully independent — you can make HH blue and LL orange if that works better for your setup.

Border Colors

Each timeframe has its own border color, configurable independently. Borders are the primary way to distinguish which timeframe a rectangle belongs to when multiple timeframes are enabled simultaneously.

Transparency

The default fill transparency of 88 is calibrated so that price action remains clearly readable through the overlay. Increase it if rectangles feel too prominent; decrease it if you want the structural visualization to be more prominent than the individual price bars.

Border Width

Range: 1–3 pixels. Default: 1.

Thicker borders make period boundaries more distinct, which helps when X-Ray rectangles are tightly spaced (for example, daily X-Ray on an hourly chart). On most charts, 1px is sufficient.

Classification Labels

Default: Off.

When enabled, displays the classification text (HH, LL, OB, IB) as text inside each rectangle. This is useful when learning to read X-Ray patterns — you can confirm what each color represents without memorizing the legend. Most users turn this off once the color coding becomes intuitive.

X-Ray and the Info Table

For live market monitoring, X-Ray pairs well with the Info Table (enabled in Advanced settings, Group ⑩).

The Info Table is an optional status panel in the top-right corner of the chart showing one row per active timeframe with:

• Timeframe: The abbreviation (W, M, Q, etc.)
• Direction: Current swing direction — whether the most recent confirmed swing was a High or Low
• Status: Current accumulation state — whether the timeframe is mid-period or at a boundary

While X-Ray shows you the historical structural pattern, the Info Table gives you a real-time dashboard of current states across all active timeframes. Together, they provide both context (where have we been?) and status (where are we now?).

Practical Tips

Start with one timeframe. Weekly X-Ray on a daily chart is the most common starting point. It immediately reveals the weekly structural pattern — which weeks trended up, which reversed, where consolidation occurred — without cluttering the chart.

Increase transparency if price action feels obscured. The default of 88% fill transparency works well for most charts, but if you find yourself struggling to read candlestick patterns through the rectangles, push it to 92–95%.

Use classification labels for learning, then turn them off. When you're first using X-Ray, the text labels inside rectangles (HH, LL, OB, IB) help you connect colors to classifications. Once the association is automatic, disable them for a cleaner look.

Read sequences, not individual rectangles. The value of X-Ray is in the pattern: green-green-green-white-red-red tells a story of sustained uptrend → expansion event → reversal. Individual rectangles in isolation aren't very informative.

Enable Classification Labels alongside X-Ray when verifying swing labels. If you're wondering why a swing label appeared where it did, X-Ray with classification text shows you the exact classification sequence that triggered the swing detection.

Next Steps

• Labels & Display — How swing labels stack and appear on the chart
• Tooltips & Metrics — The analytical detail available when hovering over any label
• Settings — Full X-Ray configuration reference (Group ⑧)
• Glossary — Definitions for all classification terms