Charting with PowerShell

This post is heavily plagiarised from here.  But sometimes I see an interesting nugget of code and like to make sure I never lose it, and this piece on charting for PowerShell is no different!

I’ve made a few tweaks from the aforementioned article, but I could see me using this one day to run reports on a scheduled task (connecting to SQL server etc) and emailing some pretty charts to management teams.  Here’s the code:

# load the appropriate assemblies 
[void][Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Windows.Forms") 
[void][Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization")

#create form
$Form = New-Object Windows.Forms.Form 
$Form.Text = "PowerShell Chart" 
$Form.Width = 600 
$Form.Height = 600 
$Form.controls.add($Chart) 

#create chart  
$Chart = New-object System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.Charting.Chart 
$Chart.Width = 500 
$Chart.Height = 400 
$Chart.Left = 40 
$Chart.Top = 30

#define font (otherwise when we export the chart as an image, the default text isn't legible)
$font = new-object system.drawing.font("calibri",12,[system.drawing.fontstyle]::Regular)

#create a chartarea to draw on and add to chart 
$ChartArea = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.DataVisualization.Charting.ChartArea 
$Chart.ChartAreas.Add($ChartArea)

#add data to chart 
$Cities = @{London=7556900; Berlin=3429900; Madrid=3213271; Rome=2726539; Paris=2188500} 
[void]$Chart.Series.Add("Data") 
$Chart.Series["Data"].Points.DataBindXY($Cities.Keys, $Cities.Values)

#display the chart on a form 
$Chart.Anchor = [System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles]::Bottom -bor [System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles]::Right -bor 
                [System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles]::Top -bor [System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles]::Left 

#add title and axes labels 
[void]$Chart.Titles.Add("Top 5 European Cities by Population") 
$ChartArea.AxisX.Title = "European Cities" 
$ChartArea.AxisY.Title = "Population"

#find point with max/min values and change their colour 
$maxValuePoint = $Chart.Series["Data"].Points.FindMaxByValue() 
$maxValuePoint.Color = [System.Drawing.Color]::Red
$minValuePoint = $Chart.Series["Data"].Points.FindMinByValue() 
$minValuePoint.Color = [System.Drawing.Color]::Green

#change chart area colour 
$Chart.BackColor = [System.Drawing.Color]::Transparent

#make bars into 3d cylinders 
$Chart.Series["Data"]["DrawingStyle"] = "Cylinder"

#define fonts for chart
$Chart.chartAreas[0].AxisX.LabelStyle.Font = $font
$Chart.chartAreas[0].AxisY.LabelStyle.Font = $font
$Chart.Titles[0].font = $font
$ChartArea.AxisX.Titlefont = $font
$ChartArea.AxisY.Titlefont = $font

#add a save button 
$SaveButton = New-Object Windows.Forms.Button 
$SaveButton.Text = "Save" 
$SaveButton.Top = 500 
$SaveButton.Left = 450 
$SaveButton.Anchor = [System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles]::Bottom -bor [System.Windows.Forms.AnchorStyles]::Right 
$SaveButton.add_click({$Chart.SaveImage("c:\temp\Chart.png", "PNG")})
$Form.controls.add($SaveButton)

#save chart to file 
$Chart.SaveImage($Env:USERPROFILE + "\Desktop\Chart.png", "PNG")

#show form
$Form.Add_Shown({$Form.Activate()}) 
$Form.ShowDialog()