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From: davis@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu ("John E. Davis")
Newsgroups: sci.physics,comp.graphics,comp.os.vms
Subject: Plotting program and Most (was Re: Plotting program)
Message-ID: <DAVIS.91Mar5202719@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu>
Date: 6 Mar 91 01:27:19 GMT
References: <1991Mar1.220154.29592@news.nd.edu>
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Reply-To: davis@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu  (John E. Davis)
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Organization: "Dept. of Physics, The Ohio State University"
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In-reply-to: przemek@liszt.helios.nd.edu's message of 1 Mar 91 22:01:54 GMT

In article <1991Mar1.220154.29592@news.nd.edu> przemek@liszt.helios.nd.edu (Przemek Klosowski) writes:
   I wonder if people out there could recommend a decent plotting program that:
    - will accept a simple file with data (but with flexible reading routine, 
      that does not insist on exactly two numbers per line) and make a 
      publication quality plot on laser printer.
    - has some way of previewing of the plot on PC or Tek terminal (for the 
      reasons of modifiability I think that I rather prefer a program that uses
      a "declarative" description of a plot in a file over a WYSIWYG.)
    - would let me add frills (arrows, point, curve, axis and
      plot titles) if I need them later
    - generate output that is portable and can be included in a LaTeX document
      (in either EEPIC, PicTeX or Postscript or bitmap form)
    - be itself portable to different machines/operating systems (Unix and MSDOS, 
      really, but I think I need source code)
   [...]      
   So the bottom line: what do people use to plot their data?


I had this same question about 6 months ago.  I also have access to TopDrawer
as well as GnuPlot.  However, I found neither program to be what I was looking
for.  As a result, I wrote my own program.  Some of its features are:

     1. Postscript output as well as to TekTronix terminal.
     2. Supports up to 10 columns of data in a file.
     3. The data file can contain comments as well as plotting commands.
     4. The program is interactive:  Move the cursor to a screen location
        and insert a string.
     5. Supports Greek as well as Roman fonts.
     6. Loads command files which contain plotting commands as well as other
        load commands.
     7. Different linestyles as well as 8 different symbols.
     8. Does error bars.
     9. May be run entirely from the command line: `plot -d tek -b plot.plt'
     9. Runs on both VMS and Unix.
     etc..

The program does not do 3d and the output must be either to a tektronix
terminal or to a printer capable of handling postscript.  At this point, the
documentation is poor and there is no interactive help. However, I am working
on this.

If there is interest in this program, I can post a sample postscript file
generated by the program; then if there is further interest, I can post the
source code on say, comp.vms.sources or make it available for ftp.

While I am at it, I also wrote a more/less paging program which, in my
opinion, is superior to some of the other paging programs.  For this reason, I
call it `MOST'.  It runs on both VMS and UNIX.  I intend to incorporate this
program into the plotting program as a part of interactive help.  However, at
this point, it is a standalone program.  If there is interest in this, I can
also arrange to have it available for FTP.

--
John

  bitnet: davis@ohstpy
internet: davis@pacific.mps.ohio-state.edu