Chart FX-Chart Render Size and Format

Chart FX-Chart Render Size and Format

Render Size

A common practice among web developers is to create a big chart that can be easily read on a browser. However, this practice can be an important factor on how your server behaves and performs under heavy load. Essentially, a bigger chart means a larger image must be processed, generated, stored and finally downloaded; affecting, in one way or another, the overall application's performance. Therefore, you must be careful when choosing the final chart rendering size in the page if server performance is a real concern.

To illustrate this, suppose you increase the size of a 400x300 PNG image of a chart and measure its impact on server performance.

 

We found that for every 30% increase on the overall chart size, the server experienced a significant decrease in the number of Requests per Second it could process.

 

Changing the chart size may be costly on your overall page design. However, it may be an excellent source to boost performance if you have exhausted all other options.

 

While reducing the chart size considerably will benefit server performance, you must be careful not to select a size too small that will compromise the chart's readability.

 

Format

As a server component, Chart FX allows developers to generate charts in a myriad of formats. Which one to choose depends not only on performance and scalability, but also on other important issues such as browser compatibility, interactivity, accessibility and security.

 

The Chart FX server control can dynamically generate and render PNG, JPEG, .NET, ActiveX, SVG and Flash files.

 

In general, chart formats that require a viewer (i.e. .NET, ActiveX, Flash and SVG) enhance server performance since chart files are very small and each client provides much of the processing load in painting the chart. These viewers will also allow a better analytical experience by allowing browser interaction without additional intervention from the developer or trips back to the server.

 

Specifying a specific viewer through the HtmlTag property may improve performance, however this may also affect accessibility as the chart may not be viewable by certain browsers depending on the output type chosen. For example, specifying Flash as an output format is not visible on browsers that do not have Flash already installed.

 

In general, viewers are acceptable under a controlled environment like an intranet. However, if you must reach a wide audience, you may be forced to generate universally accepted images like PNG and JPEG.

 

These raster images decrease performance since each chart needs to be painted and even stored on the server. Also, these charts will provide limited or no analytical capabilities on the browser since they are rendered as static images, except for PNG images that support hot spots or URL links on most chart elements. However, the greatest advantage in using chart images is that they provide universal access to charts from any browser, platform or operating system.