You say you’re tired of the same old graphs and charts? Russian developer Andrey Valerievich Moskvichev has some intriguing software for you. The powerful and flexible wxFreeChart application can draw curve, OHLC, Gantt, and pie charts, and histograms.
wxFreeChart is an all-in-one charting solution based on wxWidgets, the cross-platform C++ development library. It’s part of the wxCode project, which also comprises, among others, the wxPlotCtrl, wxMathPlot, and wxPlPlot libraries for wxWidgets.
wxFreeChart designed to be easy to use and to be as flexible as possible. You can create many different chart configurations, with many visual options, with minimal coding. wxFreeChart uses a model-view-controller (MVC) approach, which means you can get chart data from many different sources. It also lets you draw realtime dynamic charts. The best way to learn about its many features, Moskvichev says, is to read the wxFreeChart sample code. “It was written to be easy to understand, with many comments.”
wxFreeChart was born two years ago when Moskvichev needed charts for his own proprietary projects, but he soon decided to make wxFreeChart open source. He develops the software using Eclipse and mingw on Windows and gcc on Linux. “I chose them because they are open, free, and high quality,” he says. He hosts on SourceForge.net because “SourceForge is the largest and most famous open source network, with many advanced features for developers. To let people know about the software I put wxFreeChart on freshmeat.net and also send messages to developers’ forums and groups.”
Moskvichev releases updates to the code almost weekly. Upcoming versions are expected to add features such as logarithmic axes, interval axes, chart zoom and pan, and data markers. He is also implementing support for mouse events on user click and motion on chart elements. And he’s working on porting wxFreeChart to wxWinCE, so it will work on handheld devices.