Turning Data into Charts - Automatically

GraPL.NET has always been designed to be a 'lights-out' server, with the capability to range axes and choose good tickmarks for any data you give it. This makes it ideal as an engine to run behind your web-pages, or simply in overnight batch jobs to create large libraries of 'canned' charts each day. This section of the site shows you how easy it is to build up a simple script to turn an array of numbers into a high-quality presentation graphic with VML or SVG as the target medium.

Glossary and Worked Examples

Glossary of terms

This describes all the terms used by GraPL.NET.to refer to various parts of the chart. It is a useful reference for the various property names required to build the scripts in the sections which follow.

Middle East Oil

The original of this chart appeared in the Guardian newspaper in late 2000, and is a nice composite of a barchart and piechart illustrating different facets of the same data.

Multiple data series

These examples show how to overlay a linegraph on a barchart, how to plot two related series using a secondary Y-axis and how to make two related charts share a common key. The final example shows two charts which are completely independent, but come under a common heading and share one key.

Adding Tips and Links

One of the most powerful features of GraPL.NET is the way it allows you to associate hyperlinks with your data. This way, when the data values change you do not need to redraw any image maps to fit around the new bars or pie sectors.

If you find a chart design that you think GraPL cannot do, please get in touch! With a little lateral thinking it is usually possible to make a very close equivalent.