Google Lets You Build Better Charts via the Latest Visualization API

Tina Gasperson, May 8th, 2009
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Chart APIs are useful and popular, and Google knows how to do them well, so they’re continuously adding more features and options for customization to their Visualization API. The Google Code Blog recently highlighted a few of the newest features.

For example, there is a long list of new customization options for the table visualization.

gviztable1

And the motion chart has a few more bells and whistles, says Google. “The popular Motion Chart has become even more interactive and appealing, now with zoom option, bars, and an option to save and restore the chart state. This way you can track your data over time with the default bubble view or dynamically switch to a bar view when it makes sense:”

gvizcharts3

Maybe the most useful new bit of code is the “toolbar helper element”. With it, you can export data as HTML or CSV, add the visualization to iGoogle, or grab the code to insert in your own Web page.

Be sure to visit PW’s Google Visualization API Profile for more information about this versatile and easy-to-use API.