GullFOSS reports details of the charting tool forthcoming in OpenOffice.org 2.3.

Its 3-d functionality makes charts and graphics more readable (and its new default color palette helps too).

Author Bjoern Milcke writes, “The first thing I want to show here is the “right-angled-axis” Feature. This means you get a 90 degree angle between  the x-axis and the y-axis in the 2d projection plane. Sounds complicated, but is quite easy to understand, especially with a picture.

What this feature does, is combine the accuracy of 2d charts and the niceness of 3d charts. You are still able to read and compare the values nicely, but also have this impression of some more real columns. What you also see here is the “simple” 3d look, where the shading is done flat, i.e. every plane gets one shade and not a gradient. The more “realistic” look might look cooler, but again, when it comes to readability, the simple look might be the better choice.”

All-in-all, it’s a solid new feature that will make OOo 2.3 an important upgrade when it comes out this year.

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 2:29 pm and is filed under OpenOffice.org. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.