Open Source Charts

 JFreeChart – Free 100% Java Chart Library

JFreeChart is a free 100% Java chart library that makes it easy for developers to display professional quality charts in their applications.The JFreeChart project was founded seven years ago, in February 2000, by David Gilbert. Today, JFreeChart is used by approximately 40,000 to 50,000 developers. JFreeChart’s extensive feature set includes:

• a consistent and well-documented API, supporting a wide range of chart types.
• a flexible design that is easy to extend, and targets both server-side and client-side applications.
• support for many output types, including Swing components, image files (including PNG and JPEG), and vector graphics file formats (including PDF, EPS and SVG).
• JFreeChart is “open source” or, more specifically, free software. It is distributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public Licence (LGPL), which permits use in proprietary applications.

Requirements: Java 2 platform (JDK version 1.3 or later)
Demo: http://www.jfree.org/jfreechart/samples.html
License: LGPL License

How to Create Professional 3D Pie Charts in Illustrator

 

Are you still using the traditional 2D graph for your reports and presentations? N.Design Studio taught us how to create 3D Pie Charts with Illustrator CS2 at ease. The Pie Charts looks so real and professional.

As a freelancer, we may come into the situation that you have to present some sort of statistical data to your client. Of course you may use Excel’s graph tool to easily create a bunch of charts, but more or less all of those predefined designs suck. Bartelme Design show us how to create visually appealing Pie charts using Adobe Illustrator’s graph tool.

GoSquared showed us how to create beautiful Pie Charts in Illustrator. Just follow a few simple steps, and you’ll view pie charts in a whole new light.

IMmodernLife created a comprehensive tutorial of how to make overwhelming niceness of the Pie Charts. He is using Adobe Illustrator CS2, but the tips should apply to most of the more recent versions.

Requirements: Adobe Illustrator
Demo 1: http://www.ndesign-studio.com/resources/tutorials/3d-graphs/”
Demo 2: http://bartelme.at/journal/archive/creating_graphs/journal/281/
Demo 3: http://www.gosquared.com/liquidicity/archives/103
Demo 4: http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/article/howto…
License: License Free

FusionCharts Free Interactive and Data-Driven Flash Charts

 

FusionCharts Free is a flash charting component that can be used to render data-driven & animated charts for your web applications and presentations. It is a cross-browser and cross-platform solution that can be used with ASP.NET, ASP, PHP, JSP, ColdFusion, Ruby on Rails, simple HTML pages or even PowerPoint Presentations to deliver interactive and powerful flash charts. You do NOT need to know anything about Flash to use FusionCharts. All you need to know is the language you’re programming in.

The free version offers you most of the features that you would normally need. If the features in free version does not satiate your requirements, you might consider a paid version. In contrast, offers a lot more advanced options like gradients, 3D Lightings (shadow, blur effect, glow effect and bevel), custom animations, in-built debuggers, more chart types, enhanced AJAX support, data-driven flash maps, loading into other Flash movies, personalized implementation support etc.

If you are interested, you may want to look at FusionCharts Google Gadget as well.

Requirements: Flash Support
Demo: http://www.fusioncharts.com/Free/Gallery.asp
License: License Free

20 Types of Free Charts from PHP/SWF Charts

PHP/SWF Charts is a simple, yet powerful PHP tool to create attractive web charts and graphs from dynamic data. Use PHP scripts to generate or gather the data from databases, then pass it to this tool to generate Flash (swf) charts and graphs. PHP/SWF Charts makes the best of both the PHP and SWF worlds. PHP scripts provide integration, and Flash provides the best graphic quality. It supports many charts types, Line, Column, Stacked column, Floating column, 3D column, Stacked 3D column, Parallel 3D column, Pie, 3D Pie, Bar, Stacked bar, Floating bar, Area, Stacked area, Candlestick, Scatter, Polar, Mixed, Composite and Joined. Can you ask for more? They have the following main features.

• Web charts and graphs from dynamic data
• Live and interactive chart updates without reloading the web page
• Clickable charts, and drill-down
• Animated transitions
• Printable charts
• Simple and flexible chart generation

PHP/SWF Charts is free to download and use. The free, unregistered version contains all the features except for:

1. Clicking a chart takes the user to the PHP/SWF Charts web site
2. No displaying charts inside another flash file
3. No technical support, and no product updates by e-mail

Requirements: Flash Player 6+, Server with PHP Support
Demo: http://www.maani.us/charts/index.php?menu=Gallery
License: License Free