Drawing Charts in Android with AChartEngine Library

AChartEngine is a charting library for Android applications that currently supports the following chart types:

line chart
area chart
scatter chart
time chart
bar chart
pie chart
bubble chart
doughnut chart
range (high-low) bar chart
dial chart / gauge
combined (any combination of line, cubic line, scatter, bar, range bar, bubble) chart
cubic line chart

They announced that new chart types would be added in future release (Current version is 0.7.0). You can follow the updates for the library on Google Code or Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/achartengine.

You can download the aChartEngine library on Google Code.

You can also download some demo code such as TemperatureChart.java which display the following chart with just 100 lines of code including comments.

Charting Library for Android: Temperature Chart Demo — Temperature Range Chart drawn with AChartEngine Library

Here’s the code (TemperatureChart.java) to display the Chart above:

**
 * Copyright (C) 2009, 2010 SC 4ViewSoft SRL
 *  
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *  
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *  
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */
package org.achartengine.chartdemo.demo.chart;

import org.achartengine.ChartFactory;
import org.achartengine.chart.BarChart.Type;
import org.achartengine.model.RangeCategorySeries;
import org.achartengine.model.XYMultipleSeriesDataset;
import org.achartengine.renderer.SimpleSeriesRenderer;
import org.achartengine.renderer.XYMultipleSeriesRenderer;

import android.content.Context;
import android.content.Intent;
import android.graphics.Color;
import android.graphics.Paint.Align;

/**
 * Temperature demo range chart.
 */
public class TemperatureChart extends AbstractDemoChart {

  /**
   * Returns the chart name.
   * 
   * @return the chart name
   */
  public String getName() {
    return "Temperature range chart";
  }

  /**
   * Returns the chart description.
   * 
   * @return the chart description
   */
  public String getDesc() {
    return "The monthly temperature (vertical range chart)";
  }

  /**
   * Executes the chart demo.
   * 
   * @param context the context
   * @return the built intent
   */
  public Intent execute(Context context) {
    double[] minValues = new double[] { -24, -19, -10, -1, 7, 12, 15, 14, 9, 1, -11, -16 };
    double[] maxValues = new double[] { 7, 12, 24, 28, 33, 35, 37, 36, 28, 19, 11, 4 };

    XYMultipleSeriesDataset dataset = new XYMultipleSeriesDataset();
    RangeCategorySeries series = new RangeCategorySeries("Temperature");
    int length = minValues.length;
    for (int k = 0; k < length; k++) {
      series.add(minValues[k], maxValues[k]);
    }
    dataset.addSeries(series.toXYSeries());
    int[] colors = new int[] { Color.CYAN };
    XYMultipleSeriesRenderer renderer = buildBarRenderer(colors);
    setChartSettings(renderer, "Monthly temperature range", "Month", "Celsius degrees", 0.5, 12.5,
        -30, 45, Color.GRAY, Color.LTGRAY);
    renderer.setBarSpacing(0.5);
    renderer.setXLabels(0);
    renderer.setYLabels(10);
    renderer.addXTextLabel(1, "Jan");
    renderer.addXTextLabel(3, "Mar");
    renderer.addXTextLabel(5, "May");
    renderer.addXTextLabel(7, "Jul");
    renderer.addXTextLabel(10, "Oct");
    renderer.addXTextLabel(12, "Dec");
    renderer.addYTextLabel(-25, "Very cold");
    renderer.addYTextLabel(-15, "Cold");
    renderer.addYTextLabel(-5, "Quite cold");
    renderer.addYTextLabel(5, "OK");
    renderer.addYTextLabel(15, "Decent");
    renderer.addYTextLabel(25, "Warm");
    renderer.setMargins(new int[] {30, 70, 10, 0});
    renderer.setYLabelsAlign(Align.RIGHT);
    SimpleSeriesRenderer r = renderer.getSeriesRendererAt(0);
    r.setDisplayChartValues(true);
    r.setChartValuesTextSize(12);
    r.setChartValuesSpacing(3);
    r.setGradientEnabled(true);
    r.setGradientStart(-20, Color.BLUE);
    r.setGradientStop(20, Color.GREEN);
    return ChartFactory.getRangeBarChartIntent(context, dataset, renderer, Type.DEFAULT,
        "Temperature range");
  }

}

100

101

102

* Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");

* you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.

* You may obtain a copy of the License at

* http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

* Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software

* distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,

* WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.

* See the License for the specific language governing permissions and

* limitations under the License.

package org.achartengine.chartdemo.demo.chart;

import org.achartengine.ChartFactory;

import org.achartengine.chart.BarChart.Type;

import org.achartengine.model.RangeCategorySeries;

import org.achartengine.model.XYMultipleSeriesDataset;

import org.achartengine.renderer.SimpleSeriesRenderer;

import org.achartengine.renderer.XYMultipleSeriesRenderer;

import android.content.Context;

import android.content.Intent;

import android.graphics.Color;

import android.graphics.Paint.Align;

/**

* Temperature demo range chart.

public class TemperatureChart extends AbstractDemoChart {

/**

* Returns the chart name.

* @return the chart name

public String getName() {

return "Temperature range chart";

}

/**

* Returns the chart description.

* @return the chart description

public String getDesc() {

return "The monthly temperature (vertical range chart)";

}

/**

* Executes the chart demo.

* @param context the context

* @return the built intent

public Intent execute(Context context) {

double[] minValues = new double[] { -24, -19, -10, -1, 7, 12, 15, 14, 9, 1, -11, -16 };

double[] maxValues = new double[] { 7, 12, 24, 28, 33, 35, 37, 36, 28, 19, 11, 4 };

XYMultipleSeriesDataset dataset = new XYMultipleSeriesDataset();

RangeCategorySeries series = new RangeCategorySeries("Temperature");

int length = minValues.length;

for (int k = 0; k < length; k++) {

series.add(minValues[k], maxValues[k]);

}

dataset.addSeries(series.toXYSeries());

int[] colors = new int[] { Color.CYAN };

XYMultipleSeriesRenderer renderer = buildBarRenderer(colors);

setChartSettings(renderer, "Monthly temperature range", "Month", "Celsius degrees", 0.5, 12.5,

-30, 45, Color.GRAY, Color.LTGRAY);

renderer.setBarSpacing(0.5);

renderer.setXLabels(0);

renderer.setYLabels(10);

renderer.addXTextLabel(1, "Jan");

renderer.addXTextLabel(3, "Mar");

renderer.addXTextLabel(5, "May");

renderer.addXTextLabel(7, "Jul");

renderer.addXTextLabel(10, "Oct");

renderer.addXTextLabel(12, "Dec");

renderer.addYTextLabel(-25, "Very cold");

renderer.addYTextLabel(-15, "Cold");

renderer.addYTextLabel(-5, "Quite cold");

renderer.addYTextLabel(5, "OK");

renderer.addYTextLabel(15, "Decent");

renderer.addYTextLabel(25, "Warm");

renderer.setMargins(new int[] {30, 70, 10, 0});

renderer.setYLabelsAlign(Align.RIGHT);

SimpleSeriesRenderer r = renderer.getSeriesRendererAt(0);

r.setDisplayChartValues(true);

r.setChartValuesTextSize(12);

r.setChartValuesSpacing(3);

r.setGradientEnabled(true);

r.setGradientStart(-20, Color.BLUE);

r.setGradientStop(20, Color.GREEN);

return ChartFactory.getRangeBarChartIntent(context, dataset, renderer, Type.DEFAULT,

"Temperature range");

}

Jean-Luc Aufranc (CNXSoft)

Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.