Libs & Technology to help me build a Mareys Chart

Question

I am in need of a component to show and interact with a Marey's Chart.

For those who are not familiar, a Merey's Chart is a chart to visualize train movements in a Time x Location axis. Much like this image:

I have looked up and down but couldn't find anything out of the box to assist me (suggestions are much appreciated here). So I am considering building my own component.

My components needs to be:

• High performance - It will be showing real time data along with user interactions
• Highly interactive - The user may click around the lines, modify them by dragging, zoom, pan, remove, add, etc.

Right now I'm more inclined to a web solution, using HTML5 Canvas for performance reasons, but I do not have much experience on drawing charts in desktop applications (using JavaFX or C# Canvas) to know if they are the best options. So asking the questions:

• Do you know any lib / component that would help me to develop this? (JS, Java or C#)
• Do you see / had any performance issues in developing a web solution in this scenario-like?
• Do you think HTML5 Canvas over SVG (D3 for instance) is a good approach?

Any recommendation or comment on this I appreciate. Thanks!

Answer 1

Essential Chart for WPF is an option to consider for desktop applications. I will check regarding web related options and post a separate answer if we have them.

Sample source code

You need to download the Syncfusion DLLs from their website or from Nuget to be able to run the sample. The following features have been used to achieve the requirements:

1. DateTimeAxis for vertical axis
2. FastLineSeries for good performance
3. EnableScrollbar for axis allows for panning and zooming
4. Top axis labels using multiple axis for chart and setting CustomLabels
5. Cross hair label for top axis using label converter
6. SfDateTimRangeNavigator to show complete data below the chart

The whole product is available for free through the community license if you qualify (less than 1 million USD in revenue).

Note: I work for Syncfusion.