Depending on your actual goal and needs, you might consider taking a look at processing.org. The site has many demos and like many other libraries, it is free. Using Processing does not require you to learn much. It is similar to Java and written in Java, but allows you to ignore much of the Java structure and code and just do what you want.
Since you mentioned that you would want to use x or y to code in, it sounds like you have not made a language decision, so this might be worth your time. Spend 15 minutes there and look at the demos to see if it provides what you are looking for. If speed to a single solution is one of your criteria, this might do it.
