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Repost: Re: Scientific Plotting?
Repost:
My apologies for mangling my return address on the post. I wanted to
avoid more spam by the mangling. My e-mail address was included at the
bottom. Hmmm. If only I could count the number of spam e-mails I will
get from this repost,...

Original reply:

I am also trying to find an adequate *object* based plotting package. I
am writing some signal processing software and want to code plotting
into the classes I am defining.

Some requirements:
1) Postscript output (for inclusion in high quality Word & Powerpoint
documents) GIF, JPG, etc just do not have the resolution. They default
to 72 dpi rendering. You can overcome this on Linux using Image Magick's
convert -dens 300. The resulting files are large.

2) Object oriented
3) Images

Our current assessment:

GIST: not enough flexibility in configuring the plots. It has the
Postscript we need, though. We have it coded in now for some look at the
data. But it is not the long term solution.

Plplot: uses stroke fonts, even in postscript output. We cannot get a
uniform look with matlab produced plots. Bummer. Otherwise it looked
good. I am afraid when blown up the fonts will look even worse. For
example. To get a bold font you have to play with pen width and font
size. Isn't "Helevetica-Bold" easier to specify? Also, it is at a
developmental (& FORTRAN) deadend. No chance to change things.

Gnuplot: Runs gnuplot through a pipe. All of the data (upto many MB)
also has to go through the pipe. Unsat. I want to plot efficiently.

plotlib: not enough high level wrappers. I do not want to have to
calculate default axis size, where to put tick marks, etc.

Pgplot: looks like plplot.

Piddle & graphite: looks good, but not mature enough. We are keeping an
eye on it. Probably will try it.

PyMat: I want to get away from needing Matlab licenses

I am kind of bummed. If we wrap intelligent python wrappers around
something, we will post it.

Michael Huster
mhuster@hotmail.com



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Repost: Re: Scientific Plotting? [ In reply to ]
mhuster@hotmail.com wrote in message <7n5fhn$9e5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>...

Have you checked out www.python.org/topics/scicomp ? It has references to a
plot-sig - a SIG dedicated to this topic. It is almost certain that the
people who know about this stuff will hang out there... If you dont get an
answer there, it is almost certain that what you are looking for does not
exist.

Mark.

>Repost:
>My apologies for mangling my return address on the post. I wanted to
>avoid more spam by the mangling. My e-mail address was included at the
>bottom. Hmmm. If only I could count the number of spam e-mails I will
>get from this repost,...
Repost: Re: Scientific Plotting? [ In reply to ]
On Wed, Jul 21, 1999 at 09:54:05PM +0000, mhuster@hotmail.com wrote:
> Original reply:
>
> I am also trying to find an adequate *object* based plotting package. I
> am writing some signal processing software and want to code plotting
> into the classes I am defining.
>
> Some requirements:
> 1) Postscript output (for inclusion in high quality Word & Powerpoint
> documents) GIF, JPG, etc just do not have the resolution. They default
> to 72 dpi rendering. You can overcome this on Linux using Image Magick's
> convert -dens 300. The resulting files are large.

If you need to print it, then you should consider PiCTeX which is a
TeX macro package.

>
> 2) Object oriented

I guess you could write python module. From my experience, plotting
is impossible to standardize because of varying personal taste and
need (ie. scaling, labeling, title, fonts, lines, ...)

> 3) Images

??

>
> Our current assessment:
>
> GIST: not enough flexibility in configuring the plots. It has the
> Postscript we need, though. We have it coded in now for some look at the
> data. But it is not the long term solution.
>
> Plplot: uses stroke fonts, even in postscript output. We cannot get a
> uniform look with matlab produced plots. Bummer. Otherwise it looked
> good. I am afraid when blown up the fonts will look even worse. For
> example. To get a bold font you have to play with pen width and font
> size. Isn't "Helevetica-Bold" easier to specify? Also, it is at a
> developmental (& FORTRAN) deadend. No chance to change things.
>
> Gnuplot: Runs gnuplot through a pipe. All of the data (upto many MB)
> also has to go through the pipe. Unsat. I want to plot efficiently.
>
> plotlib: not enough high level wrappers. I do not want to have to
> calculate default axis size, where to put tick marks, etc.
>
> Pgplot: looks like plplot.
>
> Piddle & graphite: looks good, but not mature enough. We are keeping an
> eye on it. Probably will try it.
>
> PyMat: I want to get away from needing Matlab licenses
>
> I am kind of bummed. If we wrap intelligent python wrappers around
> something, we will post it.
>
> Michael Huster
> mhuster@hotmail.com
>
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
>
> --
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
Repost: Re: Scientific Plotting? [ In reply to ]
From: William Park <parkw@better.net>
Subject: Re: Repost: Re: Scientific Plotting?

On Wed, Jul 21, 1999 at 09:54:05PM +0000, mhuster@hotmail.com wrote:
> Original reply:
>
> I am also trying to find an adequate *object* based plotting package. I
> am writing some signal processing software and want to code plotting
> into the classes I am defining.
>
> Some requirements:
> 1) Postscript output (for inclusion in high quality Word & Powerpoint
> documents) GIF, JPG, etc just do not have the resolution. They default
> to 72 dpi rendering. You can overcome this on Linux using Image Magick's
> convert -dens 300. The resulting files are large.

If you need to print it, then you should consider PiCTeX which is a
TeX macro package.

>
> 2) Object oriented

I guess you could write python module. From my experience, plotting
is impossible to standardize because of varying personal taste and
need (ie. scaling, labeling, title, fonts, lines, ...)

> 3) Images

??

>
> Our current assessment:
>
> GIST: not enough flexibility in configuring the plots. It has the
> Postscript we need, though. We have it coded in now for some look at the
> data. But it is not the long term solution.
>
> Plplot: uses stroke fonts, even in postscript output. We cannot get a
> uniform look with matlab produced plots. Bummer. Otherwise it looked
> good. I am afraid when blown up the fonts will look even worse. For
> example. To get a bold font you have to play with pen width and font
> size. Isn't "Helevetica-Bold" easier to specify? Also, it is at a
> developmental (& FORTRAN) deadend. No chance to change things.
>
> Gnuplot: Runs gnuplot through a pipe. All of the data (upto many MB)
> also has to go through the pipe. Unsat. I want to plot efficiently.
>
> plotlib: not enough high level wrappers. I do not want to have to
> calculate default axis size, where to put tick marks, etc.
>
> Pgplot: looks like plplot.
>
> Piddle & graphite: looks good, but not mature enough. We are keeping an
> eye on it. Probably will try it.
>
> PyMat: I want to get away from needing Matlab licenses
>
> I am kind of bummed. If we wrap intelligent python wrappers around
> something, we will post it.
>
> Michael Huster
> mhuster@hotmail.com
>
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Share what you know. Learn what you don't.
>
> --
> http://www.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list


--
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| Standard disclaimer: The views of this user are strictly his own.
Repost: Re: Scientific Plotting? [ In reply to ]
mhuster@hotmail.com wrote:
>
> ...
> Original reply:
>
> I am also trying to find an adequate *object* based plotting package. I
> am writing some signal processing software and want to code plotting
> into the classes I am defining.
>
> Some requirements:
> 1) Postscript output (for inclusion in high quality Word & Powerpoint
> documents) GIF, JPG, etc just do not have the resolution. They default
> to 72 dpi rendering. You can overcome this on Linux using Image Magick's
> convert -dens 300. The resulting files are large.
>
> 2) Object oriented
> 3) Images
> ...

What about the plotting library DISLIN? It supports high quality
PostScript files and some elementary image routines. PostScript fonts
can be used for PostScript files. Manuals and software are available
from the DISLIN Homepage

http://www.linmpi.mpg.de/dislin

-------------------
Helmut Michels
Max-Planck-Institut fuer Aeronomie Phone: +49 5556 979-334
Max-Planck-Str. 2 Fax : +49 5556 979-240
D-37191 Katlenburg-Lindau Mail : michels@linmpi.mpg.de
Repost: Re: Scientific Plotting? [ In reply to ]
mhuster@hotmail.com wrote:

> I am also trying to find an adequate *object* based plotting package. I
> am writing some signal processing software and want to code plotting
> into the classes I am defining.
>
> Some requirements:
> 1) Postscript output (for inclusion in high quality Word & Powerpoint
> documents) GIF, JPG, etc just do not have the resolution. They default
> to 72 dpi rendering. You can overcome this on Linux using Image Magick's
> convert -dens 300. The resulting files are large.
>
> 2) Object oriented
> 3) Images

I don't think it is quite what you are looking for, but you might check
out VTK at http://www.kitware.com/vtk.html It's main focus is high
quality 3D data visualization but it contains an image pipeline as
well. The main problem for you might be the PostScript support (I think
it is there but I am not sure how complete) On the other hand, it does
build python bindings (and tcl bindings too) for itself when you build
it, which is nice.

--
Bryan Van de Ven
Applied Research Labs
University of Texas, Austin
Repost: Re: Scientific Plotting? [ In reply to ]
In article <7n5fhn$9e5$1@nnrp1.deja.com>,
mhuster@hotmail.com wrote:
[...]
> Plplot: uses stroke fonts, even in postscript output. We cannot get a
> uniform look with matlab produced plots. Bummer. Otherwise it looked
> good. I am afraid when blown up the fonts will look even worse. For
> example. To get a bold font you have to play with pen width and font
> size. Isn't "Helevetica-Bold" easier to specify? Also, it is at a
> developmental (& FORTRAN) deadend. No chance to change things.
>
[...]
> Pgplot: looks like plplot.

Just thought I'd add that pgplot is pretty much a standard in some
astronomy circles, and is probably used as much via it's perl package
(from Karl Glazebrook) as from Fortran (which, believe it or not, is not
a dead language in the same circles.... ;-)

So, while I don't think it is either OO, or being further developed, it
is in use (and does have it's own particular style which some find quite
attractive)...

(Just in case you are scared it will disappear in a few months, really).

Andrew


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Repost: Re: Scientific Plotting? [ In reply to ]
A *really* fine plotting package:

http://plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il/Grace

Just use os.popen
Repost: Re: Scientific Plotting? [ In reply to ]
I've been using Grace to plot python-generated data for
three months. No problems, does PS, GIF, Type 1 fonts,
NetCDF, etc.

Very nice package; builds on Linux, Sun and Alpha Unixes,
and a simple-to-install NT binary.

Sue.