With the Google Image Charts API shutting down [1], I set out to build a replacement service that allows developers to create PNG images by encoding chart data and other options in a single URL.<p>Some might prefer an interactive Javascript charting library, but this is not possible in the case of email, SMS, Slack, and so on. This image generation solution is simpler and does not require external dependencies.<p>This project is open source and is pretty easy to run if you do not want to rely on the QuickChart.io web service: <a href="https://github.com/typpo/quickchart" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/typpo/quickchart</a><p>I welcome your thoughts and feedback.<p>[1]: <a href="https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/google-chart-api/rZtHTyYgyXI" rel="nofollow">https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/google-chart-api/rZt...</a>
This is so cool. I just tested using it with the IMAGE formula in Google Sheets and it works really well:<p><pre><code> =IMAGE("https://quickchart.io/chart?c=" & ENCODEURL("{type:'radar',data:{labels:['January','February','March','April', 'May'], datasets:[{label:'Dogs',data:[50,60,70,180,190]},{label:'Cats',data:[100,200,300,400,500]}]}}"), 1)</code></pre>
Nice! I built the following a year or two ago and it's currently running on AWS Lambda. It uses Highcharts to generate charts.<p><a href="https://api.restcharts.com/" rel="nofollow">https://api.restcharts.com/</a><p><a href="https://github.com/whatl3y/restcharts" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/whatl3y/restcharts</a><p>A competitor that appears to be profitable and doing well is <a href="https://charturl.com/" rel="nofollow">https://charturl.com/</a>.
TIL that Google Charts is shutting down. My first thought after seeing this was "how is this different than Google Charts?". Then I got to the bottom about GC shutting down.<p>I didn't use GC very much, but when I needed a quick chart it was super handy. Thanks for making this!
Looks great :-) You should charge for it. Maybe even in the interest of your users, to keep the service alive. You could leave it open source so people can self-host, or use your server for a fee for convenience.
Great app! Here's a similar tool that I've seen, but haven't used: <a href="http://chartd.co" rel="nofollow">http://chartd.co</a>
I’d recommend taking a look at Vega <a href="https://vega.github.io/vega/" rel="nofollow">https://vega.github.io/vega/</a> or its sibling Vega-lite. It exposes all of its configuration via declarative JSON. I could see it working well for a use case like this
Looks great. There have been a few projects like this that I’ve seen but yours has a good amount of flexibility.<p>Do you intend to monetize this somehow? I imagine that throwing a few million daily requests on something that renders images (fast) isn’t exactly free to host...
Cool! You should multiply the width and height of each chart on your marketing site by `window.devicePixelRatio` so that the graphs look crisp on Retina/HiDPI displays.
Great stuff and free :) question - you don't need to urlencode the paramteres in the URL? how so? Further - isnt that limited to 1024 chars per URI specs ?
Are the example charts supposed to have red backgrounds? It loads that way on my system in 3 different browsers.<p>edit: It is working fine now. No more red backgrounds.
Reminds me of the late Chartspree[0].<p>[0]: <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20170201170400/http://chartspree.io/" rel="nofollow">http://web.archive.org/web/20170201170400/http://chartspree....</a>
<a href="https://www.image-charts.com" rel="nofollow">https://www.image-charts.com</a> is a drop-in replacement for Google Image Charts.
I never thought of using any service to generate a chart and this looks like it may come in handy in the future for me.<p>Glad that it is open source so people can self host it.
google visualisation api remains. its in-browser .js, heavier weight, but it works. So this is a replacement for throwing data at a central chart render engine, not a replacement for all current google charting methods. (disclaimer: I've built sites which depend on the google chart & visualisation api)<p>This replaces the deprecated image chart methods.