sfl@chem.ucsd.edu (Susan Fichera) (04/24/91)
Awhile back I asked for pointers to programs that could handle the output of the utility 'graph', which produces plotting information in a device-independent format under UNIX. 'graph' comes installed on the NeXT. The 'graph' program is useful if you have ascii files containing pairs of numbers that need to be viewed quickly in a plot. I want to display the plot in a postscript window on the NeXT. I got several interesting replies. Here is a summary. psplot - This is an easy and straight-forward solution, and it comes with your NeXT software. You would pipe the output of 'graph' to 'psplot', and capture that output in a file with .ps extension. Then, it can be viewed with any postscript previewer program, such as Preview or Yap. gnuplot - This is available from the archive on prep.ai.mit.edu. I have not used it myself, but some seem to recommend it. jgraph - This is a clone of 'graph' which produces postscript directly. The 'psplot' step would thus be eliminated. I don't know where this program can be grabbed from, however. plplot - Available from the purdue archives. This is a library of C routines that create scientific graphs in 2D, 3D, and contour plots. plplot.tar.Z contains the source, and NXplplot.tar.Z contains the library, example programs and documentation. There seems to be some work involved - the author mentioned that a driver program would have to be written to call the graphics routines. For more info, contact Tony Richardson (amr@egr.duke.edu). Mathematica - Let's not forget the plotting abilities of this program. THe ReadList command will bring in files containing sample values, producing a plot on the fly. Many thanks to: Alex Woo RAA THomas Pulliam Dave Norton Erik Schumacher Sincerely, Susan Fichera NeXT mailbox: sfl@wendy.ucsd.edu