Competitive
Analysis

Why Choose Olectra Chart
over First Impression V2.0

Better Performance - Olectra Chart provides performance for real-time data that is at least 4 times faster and up to 13 times faster than First Impression. For scrolling strip charts Olectra Chart is the obvious choice.

Documentation - Olectra Chart gives you printed documentation in the box. First Impression does not. Olectra Chart also provides on-line help that is much more comprehensive than First ImpressionÆs.

Examples and Samples - Olectra Chart provides a very comprehensive set of demo programs and sample code to help developers get started quickly and easily. Olectra Chart comes with 20 demo programs and over 40 sample code files. There is over 30 000 lines of sample code included with Olectra Chart. First Impression comes with 10 demos and no sample code.

Ease of Use - Unlike First Impression that gives you drop-down lists that lead to drop-down lists, Olectra Chart gives developers and users an intuitive tab-based properties page that gives you control over all properties. First impression often makes you walk through all of the steps of creating a new chart with their wizard just so that you can change one style property of the graph. Olectra Chart lets you have direct control over all properties from one place - the properties page.

C/C++ API - Olectra Chart has a sophisticated C/C++ API. C/C++ developers can program directly to the C/C+ interface or to the OCX. First Impression has no direct C/C++ interface.

3D Surface Charts - Olectra Chart offers 3D surface plots with shading, contours and grid lines. First Impression offers contour lines only for surface plots . Olectra ChartÆs contour shading conveys much more information and is much more visually pleasing. First Impression offers very fine control over graph shading and light sources. While this may create a visually pleasing graph, it does not convey the information that contours and gridlines can.

Q & A

Answers to some Questions:

Are there any types of graphs that First Impression can do that Olectra Chart does not? The only major graph types that they support that we do not are Polar Plots and Radar Charts. There are some other more obscure plots that they support (like bubble and doughnut) that are probably not very popular. We will support Polar plots in the next release (Version 2) of Olectra Chart.

Why would I buy your charting control when Visual Components gives me 5 controls for $299? We do not sell a suite. We do one thing and we do it well - charting. If you want only a charting control then we can deliver one that is faster, easier to use, and provides better documentation and sample files (see above) than the charting control included in the VC suite. Customers may still need the other components in the suite and the price is low enough that developers can purchase both Olectra and the suite for the price of two components. The Visual Components Suite Deal gives you a grid control, a spell checker, a web browser and a word processing component along with their charting control. Buy their suite for the other things, but we offer the best charting