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Appendix B: Visual map

Appendix A answers what a term means. This appendix answers where what you are seeing sits on the chart and which question it serves.

B.1 Preparing the chart

After adding PRISM to the chart, open Chart Settings, go to Symbol, and turn off the original TradingView candle's Body, Wick, and Border. PRISM draws its own candle layer to show Intensity. Keeping the original candles causes the two layers to overlap and makes brightness difficult to read.

What to prepareHowWhy
Chart typeUse ordinary candlesPRISM's axes read original Price action. Chart types that transform Price distort the context.
Original candlesTurn off Body, Wick, and Border in SymbolOnly PRISM's candle layer remains, so its colors and brightness are not obscured.
PRISM componentsKeep Rhythm, Intensity, Profile, and Legend while learningEach component answers a different question. Hiding them early can leave you reading without context.
Display spaceAdjust chart width and spacing to clearly see both Price and ProfileThis improves observation; it does not create additional evidence.

Once you are familiar with the reading process, you may hide the Legend or adjust the interface to your preference. Do not change the chart type simply to make it look cleaner.

B.2 Candle brightness must be readable

PRISM uses candle-body brightness as an information channel for Intensity. If the platform's original candles overlap it, this information becomes ineffective. Let the chart display only the candle layer whose intensity can be read.

This is not an aesthetic matter. Ignoring it loses one axis for reading the chart.

B.3 What is where

Screen regionWhat you seeAxis
Around the price regionDragon and slower trend linesRhythm
Directly on the candlesColor and brightness of Harmony, Absorption, DeadIntensity
Right edge of the chartHistogram, acceptance regions, Thin, and railStructure
Crossing the histogramBoundaries between price regions, or creekStructure
Horizontal bands across timeVAH, VAL, and POC for each Value AreaMigration
DashboardValue migration, direction of Price expansion, time-based money flow, fullness, and time in Value AreaMigration
Colored regions on the price chartUnfilled gapsContext
LegendExplanations of colors and glyphsContext

Remember the layout this way: the middle of the chart is time and candles, the right edge is price levels, horizontal bands are value cycles, and the dashboard is the money-flow story.

B.4 Maintain a consistent view

Rhythm, Intensity, and Profile must all be present to read the chart according to the book's process. Gaps are useful only in markets with the type of gap the tool tracks. The Legend can be hidden once you know the terms, while the dashboard should only be hidden when it is not needed.

You may adjust display width, spacing, and colors to make the chart easier to read. These changes serve only the viewing experience; they do not create additional evidence.

When viewing longer Structure with aggregated candles, treat that as a separate analysis mode. It smooths noise and gives a larger picture, but also changes the unit of observation for the ribbon, candles, Profile, and Value Area. Therefore, do not compare it directly with the original chart, use it to place short-term stops, or use it to read very fast events such as a Spring or reclaim.

B.5 What has memory on screen, and what does not

No history: the histogram, Thin, and rail show only the current image. You cannot scroll back to see an old Profile or which level once had Absorption.

Has history: Value Area retains its location, line style, and brightness during the period in which it formed. Therefore, Value Area is the only axis you can look back at directly to review an old Structure.

To verify an observation based on the histogram or rail, you need bar replay. This is the design tradeoff: the Profile does not redraw history.

B.6 Value Area line styles

Line styleMeaningHow to handle it
SolidThe cycle is closed; evidence is sufficiently deepCan be read normally.
DottedThe sample is too thinDo not conclude too quickly. Part of the dashboard will be silent.
DashedThe cycle is still runningUse it to monitor the current auction, but treat it as changing context. See section 6.8.

The bands farthest to the left are reference only. Their line style cannot tell you whether the original sample was thin.

B.7 The only alert

PRISM proactively calls your attention only when price returns to test a boundary between price regions.

In Wyckoff language, this is the back-up after a jump across the creek: the LPS location. This event merits an alert because it has a clear invalidation condition: price has not returned to that level. Value Area is only context, so it has no separate moment to alert.


Appendix A: On-screen glossary · Back to table of contents