Transcript Plotting Packages Ray Gasser [email protected] Aaron Fuegi [email protected] SCV Visualization Workshop – Fall 2008 Plotting Packages - Applications  Commercial – MATLAB – Microsoft Excel  Open source – Gnuplot – XMGrace SCV Visualization.

Plotting Packages
Ray Gasser
[email protected]
Aaron Fuegi
[email protected]
SCV Visualization Workshop – Fall 2008
Plotting Packages - Applications

Commercial
– MATLAB
– Microsoft Excel

Open source
– Gnuplot
– XMGrace
SCV Visualization Workshop – Fall 2008
Plotting in MATLAB
Commercial package
 Command line + menu interface
 Good output quality
 Good control of plot appearance
(with some effort)
 Excellent on-line documentation

SCV Visualization Workshop – Fall 2008
Plotting in MATLAB - Example
SCV Visualization Workshop – Fall 2008
Plotting in Microsoft Excel


Commercial package
Data in connected Excel spreadsheet
– If using functions (ex: sin(x)), applied in spreadsheet,
not in plot.

GUI Interface
– Click on item you want to modify (axis, gridlines, chart
size, etc…) and adjust.


High quality output but can be tricky to control
Cut & Paste – easy interaction with other
Windows/Mac OS programs
SCV Visualization Workshop – Fall 2008
Plotting in Microsoft Excel - Example
SCV Visualization Workshop – Fall 2008
Plotting in Gnuplot

Free, widely available
 Command line interface
 Fair output quality
 Fair control of plot appearance
 Interfaces to C, Fortran, Perl, Python
 Tons of documentation and examples easily
available on the web (or included with the
package)
SCV Visualization Workshop – Fall 2008
Plotting in Gnuplot - Example
SCV Visualization Workshop – Fall 2008
Plotting in XMGrace

Free
 GUI + command line interface
 Good output quality
 Great control over plot appearance
 Can be called from C/Fortran programs
 User’s guide, tutorial, and examples included in
package.
 Caveats: quirky user interface and non-intuitive
workflow; steep learning curve.
SCV Visualization Workshop – Fall 2008
Plotting in XMGrace - Example
SCV Visualization Workshop – Fall 2008
Plotting Packages - Demos
MATLAB
 Xmgrace
 Gnuplot
 Microsoft Excel

SCV Visualization Workshop – Fall 2008