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Scientific Plotting?

Robert Kern kernr at mail.ncifcrf.gov
Mon Jul 19 18:58:32 EDT 1999 
On Mon, 19 Jul 1999 16:04:39 -0500, Nick Bower
<nick.bower at ssec.wisc.edu> wrote:

[snip]

>But...What do people use for plotting?  After looking at the Python
>Topic Guides, I've taken a quick look at the BLT and DISLIN pages, but
>both of these amazingly lack any screen shots to demonstrate their
>capabilities!!!

I use the gnuplot interface for quick, exploratory graphs.
(http://monsoon.harvard.edu/~mhagger/download/Gnuplot.html)
It can also produce Postscript hardcopies.  If you are used to gnuplot
proper, you can send it arbitrary commands through the interface.

Recently, I've been playing around with the alpha Graphite package
(http://www.strout.net/info/coding/python/graphite).  Graphite runs on
top of PIDDLE, a plotting API that currently has several backends
(e.g. PDF, Postscript, Tk, any image format available through PIL, and
more).  It's still quite rough but is pure Python; it's capabilities
expand as your needs do (if you have the time to figure out how to do
it).

>And lastly, can array operations (using NumPy) be done without for loops
>as in IDL/MatLab?  eg Multiplying 2 arrays is easy in these two packages
>because you don't need array subscripting and iteration.

That's exactly what NumPy was designed to do.  NumPy arrays overload
"*" to mean element-wise multiplication.  Matrix multiplication is
available through the "dot" function.

>Thanks muchly, Nick.

You're welcome.

Be sure to check out the Matrix and Plotting SIGs
(http://www.python.org/sigs/matrix-sig/ and
http://www.python.org/sigs/plot-sig/ respectively)

Robert Kern           |
----------------------|"In the fields of Hell where the grass grows high
This space            | Are the graves of dreams allowed to die."
intentionally         |           - Richard Harter
left blank.           |
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