New ASP.NET Chart Control

Microsoft recently released a cool new ASP.NET server control - - that can be used for free with ASP.NET 3.5 to enable rich browser-based charting scenarios:


To use this new & cool asp.net chart control you need .NET Freamwork 3.5 SP1 installed in your desktop .

Available downloads are

1. Download Microsoft Chart Controls


2. Download VS2008 tool support for Chart Controls


3. Download Microsoft Chart Control Samples


4. Download Microsoft Chart Controls Documentation

Once installed chart controls() easily find under "Data" tab in VS2008 toolbox, and you can easily decalred a new chart control in asp.net page like another Web Controls of asp.net

supports a rich assortment of chart options - including pie, area, range, point, circular, accumulation, data distribution, ajax interactive, doughnut, and more. You can statically declare chart data within the control declaration, or alternatively use data-binding to populate it dynamically. At runtime the server control generates an image (for example a .PNG file) that is referenced from the client HTML of the page using a element output by the control. The server control supports the ability to cache the chart image, as well as save it on disk for persistent scenarios. It does not require any other server software to be installed, and will work with any standard ASP.NET page.

To get a sense of how to use the control I recommend downloading the Microsoft Chart Controls Sample Project. This includes over 200 ASP.NET sample pages that you can run locally. Just open the web project in VS 2008 and hit run to see them in action - you can then open the .aspx source of each to see how they are implemented.

The below example (under Chart Types->Line Charts->3D Line and Curve Charts) demonstrates how to perform Line, Spline and StepLine charting:

The below example (under Chart Types->Pie and Doughnut Charts) demonstrates a variety of pie and 3D doughnut options:

for more help visit Microsoft Chart Controls forums at Chart Controls Forum