gregoret@zeno.mmwb.ucsf.edu (Lydia Gregoret) (07/25/89)
Are there any good alternatives to Cricket Graph? I find that Cricket Graph (v 1.3 and previous) is unusually buggy (lots of "quit unexpectedly's", misplotting best fit lines, saving my files in the wrong format when I clearly specify to save in Cricket Graph format, locking up (no input is possible) after opening an existing graph....ET CETERA!) And it always seems to be saying, "Can't Undo!" as if only to irritate me more. Is there another graphing program available that can do the sorts of things that Cricket Graph is supposed to do? I use CG mostly to produce scatter plots and fit straight lines to them. But it would be nice to be able to make 3D graphs and also to do more sophisticated curve fitting and error analysis. Color is important. Any suggestions? Lydia Gregoret Please e-mail responses gregoret@cgl.ucsf.edu gregoret@ucsfcgl.bitnet ...ucbvax!ucsfcgl!gregoret thanks
kmarko@hpdml93.HP.COM (Kurt Marko) (07/25/89)
Two suggestions as alternatives to Cricket Graph: -Kaleidagraph (by Lonnie Abelbeck of VersaTerm fame; not sure who it's marketed by nowdays, but try MacConnection or ComputerWare). -Igor by WaveMetrics (a small independent from the Portland, OR area; available only via direct order). Kaleidagraph has been around a while (>1 yr) and is an outstanding product with Cricket Graph's functionality plus many additional features. Fairly standard interface (like Cricket, you double click on everything...axes, titles, etc. to change their parameters), and much faster than Cricket at redrawing. It, like Cricket and Igor, uses the "spreadsheet" metaphor for entering and editing data. Igor is a newer product which has more sophisticated data analysis capabilities than either Kaleidagraph or Cricket, but also has a somewhat more difficult interface to master. Igor has a comprehensive macro language which is more thorough and easier to use than Kaleidagraph's. Igor is also very fast at redrawing graphs or computing curve fittings/smoothings. Neither Igor or Kaleidagraph do 3-D plots; for that type of functionality you should consider Mathematica (overkill if all you want is data analysis), Systat, DataDesk, MacSpin, or Wingz (the new spreadsheet from Informix). Hope this helps. Kurt Marko H-P Boise R&D Lab kmarko@hpdml93.hp.com
englandr@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Scott Englander) (07/27/89)
Another plug for Igor:
This program does everything i wanted Cricket to do, but couldn't. This
includes hairline lines for connecting points, adjustable size symbols
and error bars, and processing and displaying thousands of points in a
few seconds, rather than hours. Version 1.1 will include date and time
functions (now in the beta version i have), which enable me to do
something i've wanted to do for _years_, on any machine: plot time
series data (perhaps taken at uneven time intervals) against time, with
the date and or time as labels on the x-axis.
But the best part is that with the extensive macro language capability,
you can usually kluge something that Igor doesn't do already. And
WaveMetrics offers such good tech support -- i asked them (via e-mail)
how to do something, and they wrote some macros and sent them to me!
Yes, the user interface takes some getting used to if you're used to
Cricket Graph. But try switching to another word processor -- you find
the same thing is true. If Cricket does what you need it to, easily and
quickly, why switch? It's a good program for what it does well, and is
fine for many.
Disclaimer: I'm not associated with WaveMetrics, just a satisfied
user.
--
- Scottenglandr@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Scott Englander) (07/27/89)
One more thing: Igor will run _in the background_, so if you use
HyperCard as a front end for custom applications, and write data to an
"Igor Batch File," Igor, running in the background, will see the
data/commands and do the graphs/analysis, which you can then access in
your stack via the clipboard. Amazing.
--
- Scott