Creating dynamic graphs and/or gauges

[Hermes Monster]

..at work we currently have a 'dashboard' (on a 50" plasma) displaying several graphs running on Excel which are fed from numerous databases (oracle/SQL) and updated every five minutes (usually from a stored proc. call) - they do the job but look terrible.

So I'm looking at creating something a bit more pleasing to the eye but I'm struggling to decide what to do it in - currently my two best options appear be Silverlight or HTML/CSS using jQuery visualizer plugin.

The HTML/jQuery option looks easier to do, but looks pretty basic. Silverlight looks like it has great potential but it would appear to get the best results I would have to purchase some external software (something like visifire). Purchasing something isn't totally out of question, but I'd much prefer to code something from scratch or have some free plugins. I'm not particularly well versed in either, and I'm using this as a training exercise for myself...just though I better add that...

Any advice or suggestions are greatly appreciated

Also..I've found things like this http://cesso.org/Samples/ChartBuilder/ which seems like a good base to start on...

 

[lucidmedia]

Here is an overview of 20 Javascript visualization libraries...
http://sixrevisions.com/javascript/20-fresh-javascript-data-visualization-libraries/

I have heard good things about Protovis (listed on that site).

Also take a look at: http://mbostock.github.com/d3/

you mention silverlight (which I don't work in) so it seems that something plug-in based is not out of the question. The Flex charting components are very popular, have been around for a long time, and are easy to work with as well if you don't want to have to learn a JS library.

 

[Hermes Monster]

Thanks Lucid - I'll take a look at those. Looks like I might need to go down the Silverlight route however..wish me luck!

 

[harpster]

I've used XML/SWF Charts in the past to build dynamic web based charts.
http://www.maani.us/xml_charts/

 

[Hermes Monster]

Thanks harpster - they also look very impressive. Thankfully I found a silverlight graph toolkit which has helped immensely! Now I have the barebones graphs I need to spruce them up in expression blend...a challenge in itself...

As an off point, I'm really impressed with ms visual studio 2010/silverlight/expression blend it's been a long time since ms have impressed me!