I'm trying to plot data from a database over time. The data represents events taken by several entities (light bulbs). For example:
Light A
- was turned on on July 10 12:00
- it flickered at 13:45
- flickered again at 19:29
- flickered again on July 11 2:00
- then turned itself off on July 12 20:00
Lights B, C, and D all have similar patterns where they get turned on, flicker an unknown number of times, then eventually burn out. The assumption is that the on/off/flickering of each light bulb will take place at different times.
I've collected some of this data into a database and now trying to pull it from the db and plot it. My idea is to represent each bulb with a separate straight horizontal line, and each flicker as a dot (all dots connected by a straight line), which will continue to travel straight horizontally until the bulb burns out. So at the end I will get 4 horizontal lines with dots (flickers) at different values on the x axis which represents time.
Does this sound like a good way to plot this sort of data?
Now comes the big question, what graphics or charting library could help me with that? I'm willing to try out solutions from PHP, JQuery, Flex, or degrafa, but I need a push in the right direction with this. Can someone recommend a decent library to help me with this sort of graphing. I've never done graphing before. I'm mainly looking for a library that offers a straight horizontal lines chart with dots to represent when the flickers took place Any chart that matches?