Js data visualization tools

First time post! I am brand new to web development and am wondering if someone can help me out. Is it possible to use javascript data visualization tools (see datavisualization.ch for examples) to create graphs, plots, etc. but have them compiled directly to an image file, such as a png?

Intuitively it seems to me if javascript is made for web development, I should still be able to use it "offline" to create the graphics it is typically used to create online.

Look into learning about the HTML5 Canvas element and how you can use JavaScript to display: graphs, plots, images, and etc., with it.

Thanks for the reply. Upon re-reading my post it seems I wasn't very clear in what I'm looking for...

I'm looking to do something along the lines of:

• write a program in javascript and use the aforementioned tools
• run the program in my terminal and have it create png or various other image files

Essentially I am trying to figure out how to use the .js tools without opening a web browser. Is this possible? Any ideas?

JavaScript is a client side scripting language and the browser, is the "client"; so... in short... no. I would look into either C or VB.net or something along those lines; for something like this. You need a program, that is computer based and not browser based... for something like this.

It is actually possible, just not very common. JavaScript is an interpreted language, so you need an interpreter program to run JavaScript scripts. Normally, the scripts are run using an interpreter built into the web browser, but there are interpreters designed to run scripts outside of a browser (one example is Rhino).

However, this doesn't necessarily mean that any given JavaScript library will be compatible with it. Most JavaScript libraries are designed to work within an HTML page's document object model, which may not exist within the context of a non-web browser interpreter. So those libraries would not work.

Additionally, unless those libraries are specifically designed to work with a particular interpreter, it's not likely that they would work very well for generating files directly, even if they did run OK within the context provided by the interpreter.

So in summary, you should use some other language for this.