HTML scattered point graphs

sdyates has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Ok, this is a good one. I am looking for ideas on how to use perl to create graphs that can be printed in HTML. I am creating thousands of data that I want ploted and viewable in HTML.

I am sure I could parse the data enough and have it redirected in to a file and have excel read it and create a graph that way, but I wan to do this the right way and be able to create a report from a web interface and keep it simple for the user.

Any ideas? I want perl to handle all of this. Any good reading material you can give me before I embark on reinventing the wheel?

Comment on HTML scattered point graphs

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Re: HTML scattered point graphs by BUU (Prior) on Oct 06, 2003 at 18:06 UTC
uhm, GD::Graph?	[reply]
Re: HTML scattered point graphs by hardburn (Abbot) on Oct 06, 2003 at 18:03 UTC
If you're talking pure HTML, you can create a huge table with each table cell representing a point on the graph. You'll only do this if you are certifiably insane (for which you'd be in good company, as insanity is a popular attribute of Perl programmers). If you want something practical, browse the Image::, Graphics::, and Chart:: namespaces on CPAN, which will show you how to create a (for example) PNG image on the fly. ---- I wanted to explore how Perl's closures can be manipulated, and ended up creating an object system by accident. -- Schemer Note: All code is untested, unless otherwise stated	[reply]
Re^2: HTML scattered point graphs by Aristotle (Chancellor) on Oct 06, 2003 at 19:50 UTC
One note from my experience with using HTML tables as a raster graphics file format - browsers don't take well to tables with 250,000 cells.. :) If you're impatient, don't bother. Makeshifts last the longest.	[reply]
Re: HTML scattered point graphs by kesterkester (Hermit) on Oct 07, 2003 at 13:37 UTC
GD::Graph::xylinespoints sounds like just what you're looking for. I've written a command line plotter that uses it-- it uses a special tab-delimited data format for the points, but you just need to rewrite read_data () to get around that. Read more... (4 kB)	[reply] [d/l]