There are three main situations when visualizations are made: comparing data, seeing data over time, and breaking data into parts, plus some mixed cases. We will consider them one by one and figure out what type of graphs fits each case. The first post will be about comparing data.

Example 1.
The most common tool for comparing data are bar graphs. For example, here is an AnyChart visualization showing men unemployment rate in the Nordic countries:

As you can see, the difference in the height of bars represents the difference between values pretty clearly. Note that if you need to put long text labels, it is better to make a horizontal bar graph since the vertical axis gives more space for labeling.

See also our documentation and gallery: Creating Bar/Column Chart with AnyChart, Bar/Column Charts Gallery

Example 2.
What if we want to show not only men but also women unemployment rate? Now we have two sets of data for each country, and to distinguish them, we need to use different colors:

Such graphs are sometimes called double bar graphs. They can also be horizontal.

Example 3.
When one needs to represent the correlation between two related values (which can be viewed as a kind of comparison too), a scatter graph is used. Take a look at a chart showing the correlation between religiosity index and suicide rate in different countries:

The position of each point on the horizontal and vertical axes is determined by suicide rate and religiosity index correspondingly. Here, like in the previous case, we also have two sets of data for each country, but the countries themselves are no longer at focuse. The things we want to compare are the number of suicides and religiosity index in general.

While bar charts are good for emphasizing the difference between individual entities, scatter graphs are good for generalizing. The information about particular countries is hardly readable from our graph, but it perfectly shows that more religious countries tend to have lower suicide rates: the points group around an imaginary line that falls down from left to right (sometimes called line of best fit, or trend line). It is considered that the closer the points are to this line, the stronger the correlation is.

See also: Creating Scatter Chart with AnyChart, Scatter Charts Gallery

During the last year AnyChart has made another big step forward. We have successfully implemented new technologies and improved our products. The family of our customers has grown up, as well as our team (new departments have been opened this year). We are sure that our charts will keep delighting your eye, and that AnyChart is a part of the future of web and charting technologies.

Let the new year be productive and joyful for all of us. And to get into the festive mood, take a look at the picture of a dragon sleigh:

© Vladstudio

New features

• The ability to specify Z-Index for series to define custom display order for regular series and technical indicators series. Read more about this feature at Series common settings: Z-Index.
• The ability to pin a certain value on a value scale to ensure its visibility. For more information, please see: Y-Axes Settings: Pinned Value.

Bug fixes

• Dashed line annotation slow rendering bug has been fixed.
• The fieldType property in the object model is no longer ignored after calling the applySettingsChanges method.

Version history: http://anychart.com/products/stock/history/
Trial download: http://anychart.com/download/

Signatrol created a low cost wireless monitoring solution — spYdaq. It is a system comprising of a number of radio transmitting sensors that measure parameters (temperature, humidity, voltage, etc.) and send them securely by using a license free radio network to a central Basestation. The system has an ability to store information on the dedicated website. And to visualise the data, AnyChart Stock and Financial Charts component was chosen.

The challenge was:

• To make an online visualization of data obtained from a number of different sensors over long periods of time.
• To provide comfortable navigation through complex graphs.
• To integrate graphs into PHP sourced pages, with data obtained from MySQL databases.

AnyStock was used because:

• It allows for visualizing large sets of time-based data by creating fast and easy updatable charts.
• AnyStock supports advanced interactivity and navigation options. Navigation through data is also facilitated by custom text labels and a smart legend.
• Due to simple XML interface, AnyStock is compatible with different kinds of web technologies and database management systems, including PHP and MySQL.

You can enjoy the full success story here:

Signatrol Signatrol Ltd Chooses AnyStock for spYdaq Online Data Logging Solution >>

Other stories can be found here: http://anychart.com/company/success_stories.php

IDS, founded in 1995, is the world’s largest provider of web-based reporting and analysis services to the upstream oil and gas industry. IDS’ latest release — DataNet2 — makes full use of Web 2.0-compliant technologies and WITSML feeds to capture and deliver data via the web to unlimited users. The DataNet2 suite of products includes VisNet — a back-end query engine which extracts knowledge from every part of the DataNet2 system.

The challenge was:

• To visualize the data returned by VisNet (KPI’s, benchmarks) and create configurable and interactive charts.
• To ensure that all visualizations would be customizable, matching IDS’ high standards.
• To implement a variety of charts.

AnyChart’s charting technology was used to generate visualizations for VisNet because:

• The component allows for the creation of advanced and good-looking animated charts.
• AnyChart is very flexible and provides a lot of features, which made it a good choice for IDS’ project.
• The AnyChart library includes a wide range of charts which is constantly growing. Currently VisNet supports Bar, Column, Pie, Line, and Scatter graphs, but more will be added.

You can enjoy the success story here:

IDS IDS Chooses AnyChart for Its Reporting and Analysis Systems >>

Other stories can be found here: http://anychart.com/company/success_stories.php

• AnyGantt JS integration library has been refactored:
  — AnyChart.js is now named AnyGantt.js;
  — AnyChart class is now called AnyGantt.

  Please note, that you have to change these names in your JS code when upgrading.

• A Flex version of AnyGantt component. Read more at Working with Gantt Chart in FLEX.
• Expand and collapse tasks using JavaScript.
• Scroll and Zoom using JavaScript.
• dateTimeRangeChange, verticalPositionChange and expandCollapse events to handle changes in data plot.
• Printing fixes.

Version history: http://www.anychart.com/products/anygantt/history/
Trial download: http://anychart.com/download/
Download for registered customers: http://www.anychart.com/customer_area/

In AnyChart 6.0.5 we have introduced a number of important improvements:

• A new Scale Auto Calculation Mode - Axes Scales: Scale Auto Calculation Modes.
• A new scale attribute always_show_zero - Axes Scales: Always Show Zero in Auto Calculation Mode.
• AnyChart Flex Component can now be used in Android applications.
• AnyChart Flash Integration can now be used in iOs applications.
• The getInformation() method now returns gauges and pointers collection for Gauge charts.
• AnyChart() constructor can now have up to three parameters, where the third parameter is a custom chart id.
• Chart custom messages are now configured in a different way: properties are replaced with a messages object. Read more in the Preloader tutorial.
• The getPNG() function now have two optional parameters: width and height. Read more in the Save as Image tutorial.
• Series now have a new attribute - enabled - which allows to hide them when a chart is rendered and then show again using the showSeries() method. Read more in the tutorial on working with data in JavaScript.
• A number of features, such as label controls, color swatch control, actions, templates, and the apply_palletes_to attribute are now fully supported in the HTML5 engine.

Important note: Because of the bug in Flash Player 11.0.1.152 Radar and Polar charts are displayed incorrectly. If you use any of 5.x or 6.x AnyChart versions with this version of Flash Player, please, switch either to AnyChart 6.0.5 or to Flash Player 11.1.102.55 (or later).

For more bug fixes and version history see: http://anychart.com/products/anychart/history/
Trial download is available at: http://anychart.com/download/

Please, feel free to contact us if any questions arise. We appreciate our clients and work hard to anticipate their needs and keep pace with the latest demands of the industry, making our charts even more flexible and attractive.

Bug fixes

• IMPORTANT: Formatting rules now enforce escaping comma when it is used as a decimal or thousand separator. In the previous version you could use something like that: {%Value}{decimalSeparator:,} although documentation states that comma should be escaped by back slash. Since 1.5.1 rules are strict, and only the following expression works correctly: {%Value}{decimalSeparator:\,}.

  If you are upgrading from previous versions, you should check your configs and change them so that they followed the comma escaping rule.

• Formatting in value highlighter now works correctly.
• addEventMarker method now works correctly with localeBasedDate.
• Scroller events are now fired in the correct order when unselected area is clicked.
• Null values are now correctly treated as nulls (not zeros).
• MFI indicator now reads the period parameter correctly.

Improvements

• onAnnotationRemove event now returns not only the ID of a removed annotation, but also this annotation as an object — a useful improvement for implementing an “Undo” feature.
• Full compatibility with Flex 4.5 Mobile SDK — you can use AnyStock SWC in your iOs or Android Flex projects.
• Range preset buttons behavior improved, particularly when you sync two different chart objects at one page.

Documentation updates

• Updating Event Markers Visual Settings Using JavaScript sample from Online HTML/JavaScript Samples Center has been fixed.
• onAnnotationRemove description was updated in JavaScript API Reference and AnyChart Stock Flex Component: API Reference.

Version history: http://anychart.com/products/stock/history/
Trial download: http://anychart.com/download/

Bug description

In the regular version of Flash Player 11.0.1.152 the following expression:

1/Math.abs(0)

is evaluated as -Infinity, but in the Debug version it is (as anyone expects): Infinity

Reproduce

Here is a sample code you can use to reproduce this issue:

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.external.ExternalInterface;

    public class MagicWorld extends Sprite {
        public function MagicWorld() {
            ExternalInterface.call("alert", "1/Math.abs(0) = " + (1/Math.abs(0)).toString());
        }
    }
}

As soon as you have done this — compile and run the sample in the Debug and Regular versions, and you will see the difference.

The bug has been reported to Adobe: Bug#3011557
The test sample: http://anychart.com/temp/bug301157/index.html

Dart is a web programming language developed by Google. It was unveiled at the GOTO conference in Aarhus, 2011 October 10-12. The goal of Dart is to replace JavaScript as the main built-in scripting language in web browsers. Dart is intended to solve JavaScript’s problems while offering better performance, the ability “to be more easily tooled for large-scale projects” and better security features.

Our lead developer Alex Batsuev is eager to become one of the first evangelists of Dart. He has faced some problems with building Google Dart on Mac OS X Lion. Please, check out the instruction how to do that in his blog: batsuev.com