C++: Free easy way to draw graphs and charts?

Question

I am doing a little exploring simulation and I want to show the graphs to compare the performance among the algorithms during run-time.

What library comes to your mind? I highly prefer those that come small as I'd love if it's easy for my instructor to compile my code. I've checked gdchart but it seems to be too heavy. I just want a simple x-y sort of timeline graph.

Google chart is of course out of the question, in case you've read this similar question.

Thanks in advance.

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Related:

• Scatter Plots in C++

and perhaps others.

Answer 1

I've used this "portable plotter". It's very small, multiplatform, easy to use and you can plug it into different graphical libraries. pplot

(Only for the plots part)

If you use or plan to use Qt, another multiplatform solution is Qwt and Qchart

Answer 2

Honestly, I was in the same boat as you. I've got a C++ Library that I wanted to connect to a graphing utility. I ended up using Boost Python and matplotlib. It was the best one that I could find.

As a side note: I was also wary of licensing. matplotlib and the boost libraries can be integrated into proprietary applications.

Answer 3

My favourite has always been gnuplot. It's very extensive, so it might be a bit too complex for your needs though. It is cross-platform and there is a C++ API.

Answer 4

Cern's ROOT produces some pretty nice stuff, I use it to display Neural Network data a lot.