Generate charts without HTML / Browser

Question

I have a node.js application that accesses data of a MySQL database and I want to generate charts from that data dynamically, to pipe it as image (PNG/JPG) through a HTTP server to the user. I've search for a little while now, but I was unable to find a library to do this without the HTML/canvas approach. Since I want to let the server do the rendering to use the graph in emails or also dynamically rendered PDF files, this isn't an option here.

What could be the approach here (with or without a library) ?

Edit to provide proof of own work: I found https://plot.ly, which is in terms of usage and result really close to fulfil my needs, but requires an internet connection, since it calls a remote API.

Answer 1

You could also try asking this in the Software Recs Stack Overflow. But one option that seems like it could fit your needs is ZingChart.

They have a phantomJS build for rendering static versions of charts. In addition, licensed users can access a Node.js build for server side charting.

Full disclosure, I'm on the ZingChart team so please let me know if I can help you review all your options.

Answer 2

There is a node wrapper for the chart library chartist. You could use this library to generate a SVG, and a svg2png lib to convert to PNG.