Building on the demo of the Meter chart combined with a background image - the Meter chart can now have a background image as well as a needle image without using the drawing API. This allows for a large variety of significantly different looking Meter charts. The new options are:
background.image.url
background.image.offsetx
background.image.offsety
background.image.stretch
needle.image.url
needle.image.offsetx
needle.image.offsety
The link shows two examples - including one with a "sketchy" appearance.
