# Rendering charts via rails **URL:** \ **Category:** Ruby\ **Created:** [December 12, 2005, 9:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rendering-charts-via-rails/50081 "2005-12-12T21:28:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![larry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/47e85d/32.png) [@larry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/larry)\ **Post date:** [December 12, 2005, 9:28pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rendering-charts-via-rails/50081/1 "2005-12-12T21:28:39Z")
Is there a recommended way to render charts from a ruby-based web application like rails? I need a solution that is thread-safe without serializing access to the chart generator. thanks ---
**Author:** ![larry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/47e85d/32.png) [@larry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/larry)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 12:41am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rendering-charts-via-rails/50081/2 "2005-12-13T00:41:27Z")
On 12/12/05, larry [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote: > Is there a recommended way to render charts from a ruby-based web > application like rails? I need a solution that is thread-safe without > serializing access to the chart generator. I haven’t yet had a need for it, but this one looks fun: [http://www.germane-software.com/software/SVG/SVG::Graph/](http://www.germane-software.com/software/SVG/SVG::Graph/) ---
**Author:** ![larry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/47e85d/32.png) [@larry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/larry)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 1:20am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rendering-charts-via-rails/50081/3 "2005-12-13T01:20:33Z")
I’m using SVG::Graph for a home project. It’s easy to get going and create charts. But it doesn’t have very many features, the output can be hard to control and I don’t think it’s been updated in awhile, so it might be a dead project. But if you’re looking for something simple, I’d say give it a shot. It shouldn’t take to long to see if it meets your needs. ---
**Author:** ![larry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/47e85d/32.png) [@larry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/larry)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 2:02am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rendering-charts-via-rails/50081/4 "2005-12-13T02:02:44Z")
larry wrote: > Is there a recommended way to render charts from a ruby-based web > application like rails? I need a solution that is thread-safe without > serializing access to the chart generator. Check out [Gruff](http://topfunky.com/clients/rails/gruffdoc/index.html). In the future, consider using the Rails specific mailing list. You’ll get quicker answers about this sort of thing over there. –Steve ---
**Author:** ![larry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/47e85d/32.png) [@larry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/larry)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 1:35am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rendering-charts-via-rails/50081/5 "2005-12-13T01:35:38Z")
Any idea if this is better? [http://harderware.bleedingmind.com/index.php?l=en&p=/mrplot](http://harderware.bleedingmind.com/index.php?l=en&p=/mrplot) In my case, the graphs I care about are those used for statistical interpretation of survey results. So laying a line over a scatterplot is the most important. -Mike ---
**Author:** ![larry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/l/47e85d/32.png) [@larry](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/larry)\ **Post date:** [December 13, 2005, 2:59am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/rendering-charts-via-rails/50081/6 "2005-12-13T02:59:51Z")
Hey “larry”, There’s several options, but currently many of them are very ugly in Rails. I’ve had mixed success with all of them, and most of them are fairly resource intensive (google for all of them): - ploticus – This does an incredible number of plots, and is actually like it’s own little programming language than a plotting package. It’s graphs look like total ass though (classic GD is used I believe) and I wouldn’t consider any of them publication worthy. - R – R _is_ a language in its own right, and I use it like crazy for my graphing. It does fantastic plots, somehow magically knows what to do with data you give it, and can plot publication ready plots to png, ps, pdf, jpg, and just about anything else you can think of for plotting. It can also read in CSV, Excel, SPSS, and other formats. It’s a little difficult to learn at first, but try “Statistics: An Introduction Using R” by Crawley. If you’re already statistics inclined (thank you!) then just go wade through the online docs and you’ll get it. - statist – Just started playing with this. Uses GNU plot to do some very simple statistics and graphs. Quite nice actually even though it’s small and ANSI C. I’m kind of interested in make a Ruby binding to it. - rcairo – If you need absolute control then cairo is great. The rcairo library is kind of lame since it’s missing a few functions last time I checked. But, if you need to put very nice dots and lines and transforms onto an image then this is the lib for you. Go this way if you’re looking for raw 2D primitives. - rmagick – Similar in purpose to rcairo but with lots of other raw image processing capabilities. Only used it lightly but many people really like it. - [http://apples-to-oranges.com/blog/article.aspx?id=55](http://apples-to-oranges.com/blog/article.aspx?id=55) – Saw this the other day which is pretty nice if you’re doing simple bar graphs in a browser. They look better than some graphics packages. - gnuplot – Just like ploticus you could call this from the command line, but man the plots look like total barf. - grace – Some people like it. Haven’t much success with getting it to work from the command line myself. - gnu plotutils – This has a library for plotting stuff, but man do the GNU people have to use red for everything? - RubyGSL – This is a full wrapper for the GNU Scientific Library but it also appears to include the plotutils as well. I’ve been meaning to play with this as it might just have all the stats and plotting stuff you need. But, as mentioned before the plots look like a dead puppy. There’s a bunch of other ones, but if you’re looking for directly inside Ruby I’m not sure if you will have much success. Other people better in the know for Ruby science stuff might be able to help. If I do plotting I almost always do it with R or use ploticus and spawn it off (although I’m not as good at ploticus as at R). Zed A. Shaw > **[Zed A. shaw](https://zedshaw.com/)** > > Personal essays and writings by Zed A. Shaw. On Tue, 13 Dec 2005 05:27:39 +0900