Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!bronze!cliu@copper.ucs.indiana.edu From: cliu@copper.ucs.indiana.edu (chang hsu liu) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.apps Subject: Summary (long) Part4cbd~ 4: Graphing Programs to go? Message-ID: <1991May18.055950.943@bronze.ucs.indiana.edu> Date: 18 May 91 05:59:36 GMT Sender: Organization: Indiana University Lines: 115 From macq@miguel.llnl.gov Mon May 6 16:37:09 1991 I've used Kaleidagraph, it is good. Interface probably similar to cricketgraph.. Unless excel has improved drastically in the last couple of upgrades, avoid it.. I'd worry about the hardcopy quality of wingz, as described by the following qu. How easy is it to make a printed plot fill a whole page, and do you get fine li. I've seen somebody else's Deltagraph plots on-sreen and they looked good. Also investigate Igor. There are quite a few scientists who swear by it. -- -------------------- Don MacQueen macq@miguel.llnl.gov --------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: john@micor.ocunix.on.ca (John Kane) I was interested in your question about graphing packages. I must admit that we know nothing about any of them except Excel which I have used a bit. However, because you are talking about handling scientific data I thought I wod suggest that you have a look at the graphing capacities of the statistics progm SYSTAT. It is a package designed specifically for scientific graphical analyss l not will do a tremendous amount of things that something like Excel either will do or has a lot of trouble doing. For example it will jitter data to allow ber resolution in areas where there are a lot of data points, it can handle error easily, it can handle influence plots well when you are interested in the effef outlyers, etc. It can easily handle all (or damn near all) of the graphical as techniques that Cleveland in his book 'The elements of graphing data', (Clevel, Wm. S. (1985) "The elements of graphing data". Monterey Ca.:Wadsworth Advanced Books and Software.) describes (such as sploms) as well as a couple others thae way too esoteric for me to ever want to use. If you ever need Tukey's Exploray Data Analysis types of graphs they are all there. The package also allows almy conceivable kind of data transformation plus the ability to graph about any two and three dimension equations you might want. I currently am using V3.2 which has a less than pretty interface - a legacy ofrport from the DOS world. There is reportedly a new V5.0 out with a real Mac interface. I've been too lazy and cheap to get the upgrade. I have seen the pl stats/graphic MYSTAT which reportedly is the pilot of V5.0 and it does follow e Mac interface quite well. SYSTAT also exists in the DOS world and I think it n VAXen and by now probably more platforms. For real data analysis rather than just pretty pictures I don't think you can o better. Mind you with a good laser printer you can make some really pretty ps as well. Oh yes - in my limited experience the technical support is good also You may be able to find the package at your university bookstore. I bought my original copy (of V3.1) in my university's bookstore. SYSTAT gives very substantial educational discounts. If not, the address is SYSTAT Inc. 2902 Central St. Evanston, Il. 60201 Tel: (312) 864-5670 No I don't work for the company but I am a satisfied user. If you really need y duty scientific graphing capacity then I really think you should take a good lt this. John Kane john@micor.ucunix.on.ca Ottawa/Hull Canada (819) 770-5468 Canada ------------------------------------------------------------- From: gt7686b@prism.gatech.edu (BINDEMANN) I have been a satisfied user of KaleidaGraph. I use it extensively for scientific line graphs. It is much faster than the older versions of CricketGraph is used years ago. I do not know if Cricket has made their program any faster. You may also want to download the demo version of IGOR from sumex-aim.stanford.edu (I think it is in the info-mac/demo directory and is available via anonymous ftp). I looked at this demo and found that IGOR seems to be more powerful, however, KaleidaGraph is more suited for most of the work I do. If you have any questions regarding KaleidaGraph I would be happy to try and answer them for you. Good Luck! -- BINDEMANN,ALAN CHARLES Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332 uucp: ...!{decvax,hplabs,ncar,purdue,rutgers}!gatech!prism!gt7686b Internet: gt7686b@prism.gatech.edu I'm a Nervous Wreck from Georgia Tech and a Helluva Engineer . ------------------------------------------------------------- From MIKAEL_B@maja.teknikum.uu.se Wed May 15 07:01:26 1991 Date: Wed, 15 May 91 13:59 +0100 From: MIKAEL_B@maja.teknikum.uu.se Subject: Graph To: cliu@copper.ucs.indiana.edu X-Vms-To: BOOT::IN%"cliu@copper.ucs.indiana.edu" KaleidaGraph is in my opinion the best 2-dimensional graphing program around. As easy to use as Cricket Graph but with several important extra features, larger data, sets, faster, plotting of several data sets in the same diagram, coordinate readout from the graph, zoom, scripting curve fitting to user defined functions, good mathematics capabilities, excellent data import feature etc etc etc etc. Deltagraph mostly sits on my bookshelf, together with Cricket Graph, nice for 3-d colour graphs if thats what you like, also possible to link to Excel under multifinder, so the limited set of mathematical functions might not be to large a drawback.It is slow, does not place the plot symbols properly so you can't read data from the diagram with high accuracy, 3d scatterplots , which I've used most, incorrectly mixes the x and y axis, very confusing. In all a program I don't like to much but better than Cricket Graph which hasn't hade a upgrade since ???. Besides Cricket Graph can even do a reliable linear curve fit, you have to use polynom grade 1. Feel free to ask more. Mikael Bergkvist Uppsala University Dept. of Tech. Uppsala Sweden