How do I stack a RectangleChart?

Question

What I would like to do is represent the state of a machine over a period of time using a RectangleChart (or anything else that can do it) . The chart will need to be made up of equally sized blocks that change colour based on the state of the machine (there are 7 states 1-7) at that time.

I've created this chart which is similar to what I want;

data = Table[{RandomInteger[{1, 7}], 5}, {i, 1, 20}];
RectangleChart[data, ChartLayout -> "Stacked", BarOrigin -> Left]

The problem with this chart is my state data is being represented by the height of the bar, not the colour.

What is the best way to get the results I'm after?

Answer 1

If you have to use RectangleChart, then you can do something like

   states = Transpose[data][[1]]; 
 RectangleChart[ConstantArray[{1, 1}, {20}], ChartLayout -> "Stacked", 
    BarOrigin -> Left,  ChartStyle -> (Hue[#/7] & /@ states)]

or

 RectangleChart[MapThread[Style, 
    {ConstantArray[{1, 1}, {20}], Hue[#/7] & /@ states}], 
    ChartLayout -> "Stacked", BarOrigin -> Left]

to get

Among many other alternatives, ArrayPlot is probably one of the simplest ones to use:

 ArrayPlot[{states}, ColorFunction -> "TemperatureMap", 
   FrameTicks -> {{None, None}, {Automatic, None}}]