Topic awaiting preservation: PHP and charting

So I have this project for which I will need to create a very detailed metrics area.
I have never dealt with charting in PHP whatsoever.

Google searches are a little overwhelming on the subject, so I was hoping some of you could point in some good directions.

My requirements at this point are not specific at all - I am looking for whatever resources and commentary you have...how-to's, libraries, favorite packages, etc.
Only hard requirements are PHP based and totally free.

{{edit - oh, and visually pleasing!! I have seen a lot of really ugly chart rendering out there...

thanks

(Edited by DL-44 on 03-14-2009 18:45)

I'm sure this is not the kind of answer you're looking for. I think from your question you're hoping there is a package you can just pass a parameter string to and it will generate the chart you want. I'm not familiar with any packages that do that. However, as a starting point most people are going to recommend you look at GD or ImageMagic.

Another package you might look at is GNUPlot. I think it's considered kind of old these days and my not be availale on your host, but it has a lot of charting capabilities and can output in a lot of different formats. If you can get it runing on the host, it might be a place to start.

.



-- not necessarily stoned... just beautiful.

Well, the reason that I posted this here is that when I started looking around, I found too many packages that would do just that!

I am hoping someone has some experience to share.