With all the talk of web mashups I find it amazing that the most interesting ones still seem to be map-based and especially revolve around the Google Map API. Although Google doesn’t monetize this API, the free publicity the company has received because of this application programming interface is immense.
So if mapping APIs was the first phase of mashups, will the second phase be charts? It would seem we may find out soon as according to Google Blogoscoped the new Google Chart API allows you to display charts and graphs by sending parameters to the API and receiving a PNG graphic in return.
For example the following URL:
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?
cht=p3&chd=t:40,49,20,2,2,2&chs=450x225
&chl=Avaya|Cisco|Nortel|Toshiba|NEC|Aastra
cht=p3&chd=t:40,49,20,2,2,2&chs=450x225
&chl=Avaya|Cisco|Nortel|Toshiba|NEC|Aastra
will yield the following chart:
This is what the parameters mean:
cht=p3 |
chart type: in this case, a pie chart. p would specify a flat pie chart
|
chd=t: 40,49,20,2,2,2 |
chart values: text-encoded, and separated by a comma
|
chs=450x225 |
custom chart size: 350x150 pixels
|
chl=Avaya|Cisco|Nortel |
Labels: separated by the pipe character
|
What I like about this service is how easy it is to generate the charts. Moreover there are lots of parameters you can choose that I didn’t mention such as colors for the segments and background as well as resulting graphic label format.
Update: This is just a demo chart and is not meant to represent anything at all except a test of how the charting service works.
Update 12/08/07:
This code yileds the following chart (note there are colors specified in this case):
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&
&chco=ff0000,00ff00,0000ff
&chd=t:40,49,20,2,2,2,50,45&chs=450x225
&chl=Avaya|Cisco|Nortel|Toshiba|
NEC|Aastra|Scream|Tin%20Can
Update: This is just a demo chart and is not meant to represent anything at all except a test of how the charting service works.
Update 12/08/07:
This code yileds the following chart (note there are colors specified in this case):
http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?cht=p3&
&chco=ff0000,00ff00,0000ff
&chd=t:40,49,20,2,2,2,50,45&chs=450x225
&chl=Avaya|Cisco|Nortel|Toshiba|
NEC|Aastra|Scream|Tin%20Can
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The google charts API is a pretty cool addition. I added it to Deki Wiki and made it easies to customize the values, making it simple to embed charts into a wiki page:
http://www.mindtouch.com/blog/2007/12/11/google-charts-and-graphs/
It’s very good article. Great site with very good look and perfect information.