Unix Graphing Programs? 85
An anonymous reader asks: "For university I am looking for a program to make some nice 2D or 3D graphs to represent some data for statistics. I am currently using RedHat Fedora as my Linux distro but KChart, Gnumeric, OpenOffice, and the other ones I found weren't suitable. It would be nice if the "template" was easily configurable so I could standarize all of my work. i.e. have the actual value next to the bar etc.. It's mainly bar graphs that I need. Does anyone have any recommendations for good easy Linux programs to graph general data? professor didn't have any ideas for Linux."
Here's a suggestion: (Score:4, Funny)
<humor>
KmPlot!
</humor>
^_^
gnuplot (Score:5, Informative)
www.gnuplot.info [gnuplot.info]
Re:gnuplot (Score:3, Informative)
unix plotting tutorial [umd.edu]
Re:gnuplot (Score:1)
gnuplot (Score:2)
gnuplot (Score:3, Informative)
gnuplot of course! (Score:5, Informative)
gnuplot homepage [gnuplot.info]
It has a learning curve, since it is mostly commandline based, but if you're in university you should be able to figure it out... I hope.
Re:gnuplot of course! (Score:3, Interesting)
gnuplot? (Score:2)
GnuPlot (Score:3, Informative)
Although it's more a graphing tool, it's flexible enough to do charts, with a little work. Fortunately, there are scripts like Barchart [ptphong.com] that do most of the heavy lifting for you.
one perl method... (Score:3, Informative)
http://search.cpan.org/~kester/Chart-Scientific-0
Friend of mine wrote it a while ago to do 2-D scientific plotting. If you know some PERL, you might be able to get this to fill your needs.
use apt (Score:1, Interesting)
libcrypt-blowfish-perl - Blowfish cryptography for Perl
libg20-perl - g2 2D graphics library (Perl module)
libgd-graph-perl - Graph Plotting Module for Perl 5
libgd-graph3d-perl - Create 3D Graphs with GD and GD::Graph
libgeography-nationalgrid-perl - Class for a point and to transform coordinate systems
libgraph-perl - graph operations
libgraphics-colordeficiency-perl - Color Deficiency Simulation
libgraphics-colornames-perl - defines RGB values for common color names
l
Octave (Score:3, Informative)
It's syntax is fairly similar to several large expensive math packages and it's fairly easy once you get the hang of it (just like everything in life).
I second that (Score:2)
Octave is 99% compatible with Matlab, although the nicest Octave features are not Matlab-compatible. (For example, I've never been able to figure out how to make a Matlab program automatically save a plot to a file, and DEFINATELY not in a format that's easy to include in other documents. In Octave, it's pretty easy to automatically output plots in a wide variety of formats without any manual intervention.)
My typical workflow for projects in grad school is as f
Re:I second that (Score:2)
I've found with latex exporting to PostScript (instead of PDF) generally results in a document that looks BETTER on paper than on screen. Just a warning in case someone tries this, sees that the output doesn't look spectacular, and moves on. Try printing a page or two and see how it looks.
GRACE (Score:5, Informative)
Check out RRDTool (Score:2)
grace (Score:4, Informative)
Over here [weizmann.ac.il].
Does bar charts.
R for Statistics, Ploticus for same and More (Score:5, Informative)
I usually input all of my data into PostgeSQL, use R to do an analysis and insert the new data into the DB, then use ploticus to pull directly from the DB and create PNG format plots. Couldn't be easier once setup, makes writing conference papers and whitepapers (relatively) easy. If you are regenerating the same style of plot lots of times, ploticus is well worth the effort of setting up the first time.
http://www.r-project.org/ [r-project.org]
http://ploticus.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Re:R for Statistics, Ploticus for same and More (Score:2)
It seems very odd to me, but I'd be interested to hear why you prefer Ploticus to the yumminess that is R.
Grace (Score:3, Insightful)
What I've used (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What I've used (Score:3, Informative)
It's true that gnuplot's outputs tend to be a bit rudimentary for print-quality graphs, but you can go back and edit the postscript output to prettify it. I've used Illustrator (which understands postscript natively) to post-process the plot contours, do plot insets, make pretty axis lables, and shade regions between contours.
To me it just makes sense to separate the actual contour generation from the assembly of contours into final graphs. Since gnuplot is scriptable, I can do some simple data analysis (
Re:What I've used (Score:1)
To tweak the labels and make things pretty I find that I need to export plots to LaTeX via the PSLatex driver. My officemates (not LaTeX people) seem to get good results using XFig to doll up their gnuplot output, too.
Several good ones out there (Score:5, Informative)
If your doing stats stuff, seriously look into R [r-project.org].
ePix [holycross.edu] looks good, although I haven't tried it.
asymptote [sourceforge.net] is very powerful, although you probably want to do some tool hacking or scripting to make use of it.
Probably the ultimate tool for such things is Mathematica [mathematica.com]. Costs money, but the student version is feasible and it's a lovely for all this sort of thing.
And, of course, you could try searching freshmeat --- there are many many other tools there.
How about JPGraph? (Score:3, Informative)
Try R (Score:2, Informative)
Pirates like it, too.
I could really use this as well (Score:1)
At the moment, I use a combination of Matlab and Maple, both commercial programs that we have licenses for. They get the job done, but I find them both to be woefully inadequate. First and foremost, they are horrifically slow (at least in terms of actually plotting the data) for otherwise simple tasks.
I d
Try ploticus, also free (Score:3, Informative)
It is also free (gpl), and comes with example files for creating a variety of different graphs.
Since you didn't specify 'free' (Score:3, Informative)
VPython (Score:2, Interesting)
http://vpython.org/ [vpython.org]
ChartDirector produces snazzy looking charts, but Edward Tufte proably would not care for them:
http://www.advsofteng.com/ [advsofteng.com]
Scripts + OpenOffice. (Score:3, Insightful)
OpenOffice's files consist of ZIPped XML files. If you create an example document in OpenOffice that is laid out how you want it, you should be able to update the content by replacing individual pieces of data in content.xml.
That's one of the things I want to try with Citygen [citygen.org]...automatically generating OpenOffice documents will be niice.
Elaboration... (Score:1)
For the template, in place of useful data, I'm going to have unique identifiers. (five or six randomly-chosen alphanumeric characters should do the trick.) Using sed, I'm going to replace each one of these pieces with a unique value.
This should work fine for a date set whose length doesn't vary, like mine. If your data set length changes from report to report, you may need a bit better u
Don't forget the old faithful: xgraph (Score:3, Informative)
It runs on any Unix and dumps PostScript output files. Sometimes anything more is overkill.
SciGraphica! (Score:1)
From the website:"SciGraphica is a scientific application for data analysis and technical graphics. It pretends to be a clone of the popular commercial (and expensive) application "Microcal Origin". It fully supplies plotting features for 2D, 3D and polar charts. The aim is to obtain a fully-featured, cross-plattform, user-friendly, self-growing scientific application. It is free and open-source, released under the GPL license."
Unix Graphing Software (Score:2)
A list of programs (Score:1)
* Ploticus (http://ploticus.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]) was alredy mentioned, but I could not overemphasize its conceptual beauty and rich functionality. You may use it from a command line, which IMO is a great advantage.
* GNU plot. Old but viable solution
* If you need to do some things that are unavailable in other charting programs you may take a look at low-level libraries, such as GD (http://www.boutell.com/ [boutell.com])
Re:A list of programs (Score:2)
ABSOLUTELY SECOND THE MOTION FOR GD.
In combination with Perl, which has a neato module for using this, you can create very nice, functional graphs with minimal fuss.
I automated the creation of a set of graphs for a project I was working on. The hardest part was rebuilding Perl to include the GDI interface. But, that's much better documented than it was, and there's several subclass / extension modules to simplify life even further (check at CPAN.org for more info on GD, but a first link is: http://cpa [uwinnipeg.ca]
qtiplot (Score:2, Informative)
Most responses are gnuplot, which is pretty good although a bit crude.
I personally use Kpl (http://frsl06.physik.uni-freiburg.de/privat/still e/kpl/ [uni-freiburg.de]), but I feel QtiPlot (http://soft.proindependent.com/qtiplot.html [proindependent.com]) has a lot of potential.
Hope that helps.
Matlab ? (Score:2)
otherwise, if you want to make stats more than just for fun/to learn, you may want to give SPSS a try (well, that's what most ppl I know use for such kind of stuff, not personnal experience)
Re:Matlab ? (Score:1)
mathplot (Score:1)
SVG ? (Score:1)
Java: JFreeChart (Score:2, Informative)
real stuff (Score:1)
ROOT (Score:2, Informative)
Not quite the simplest program, but it can do what you want, is for free and available for a lot of platforms.
T
Maxima (Score:2)
Might be able to do bar graphs.
Altair HyperGraph (Score:1)
Grap (Score:1)
grap is an implementation of Kernighan and Bentley's language for type- setting graphs, as described in ``Grap-A Language for Typesetting Graphs, Tutorial and User Manual,'' by Jon L. Bentley and Brian W. Kernighan, revised May 1991, which is the primary source for information on how to use grap. As of this writing, it is available electronically at http://www.kohala.com/start/troff/cstr114.ps [kohala.com]
It ties in with TeX and tro
Bar Graphs? (Score:2)
Biggles (Score:1)
Another vote for GRACE (Score:1)
It can prepare publication-quality plots and lets you get the formatting just right, unlike, say, tecplot. Xmgrace also has data processing features (derivative, multiplication, etc). You can also make templates.
The only downside is that the advanced features of xmgrace aren't obvious at first -- it took me quite a while to figure out things like greek letters, templates, etc.
Publication quality (Score:2)
I've asked your same question in one of my posts. I haven't been diligently looking for an alternative to Graphpad Prism in Linux, because at the current moment I have an XP system running it. I've tried to install and run GraphPad Prism using Wine, and it installs fine, but graphics rendering when starting up the program fails.
I'm a biologist who needs an easy to use graphing program that creates p
R (really - even if slashdot wants a longer title) (Score:3, Informative)
For my PhD thesis I had to produce a lot of bargraphs etc. recently, and found R combined with some perl scripts a wonderful tool.
- Hubert
Review of a BUNCH of the available options (Score:4, Informative)
As others have suggested, Grace [weizmann.ac.il] is fantastic for 2D. Hippodraw [stanford.edu] is the most under-rated/unheard of that is also quite amazing. I use them both. I also use Matplotlib [sourceforge.net] with my python work.
If you do LaTeX & script your plots, Gri [sourceforge.net] is a good bet.
I have sometimes used gnuplot & Scigraphica, but they are less useful to me. A lot of other people still use gnuplot, so it is always good to have in the toolkit. It also has decent 3D that is not present in my preferred 2D programs. But it is uglier and clumsier than alternatives. Scigraphica wants to be Microcal Origin, but it isn't there yet. It also dropped out of development for quite a while.
I like open source. But if you are agnostic (and have deep pockets), I always thought tecplot [tecplot.com] looked cool.
Re:Review of a BUNCH of the available options (Score:2)
Re:Review of a BUNCH of the available options (Score:2)
Yes, it is very hard to figure out. I figured it most likely was, as it ships with QT & other GPLed goodies.
But a 'grep -r GPL *' will confirm that they include the GPL (in the vs.net2003/setup directory).
Re:Review of a BUNCH of the available options (Score:1)
Isn't it conceivable that the HippoDraw software in its original form is more free than GPL (e.g. PD or BSD), but the people who prepared the "Visual Studio Project Files" and pre-built versions of HippoDraw impose the GPL on their modifications to the distribution? That's what I'm trying to find out.
Doesn't it strike you
Re:Review of a BUNCH of the available options (Score:2)
Feel free to ask the author, though. Given that SOME of the contents in all distro files are explicitly GPLed, I'd follow that without the explicit written permission of the author.
Re:Review of a BUNCH of the available options (Score:2)
I was wrong: It is in the Public Domain (Score:2)
Octave as a frontend to gnuplot (Score:2)
At least I find it far far far better.
for the more adventurous grapher... (Score:2, Informative)
Try GMT (Generic Mapping Tools) at http://gmt.soest.hawaii.edu/ [hawaii.edu]
Widely used by people in the geophysics field. It's open source, and for the basic linux user it can be a slightly fiddly to get up and running.
It's a collection of command line tools that generate postscript output. You can basically customise everything to your exact tastes, and re-use the scripts if you want consistent graphs and charts.
Re:for the more adventurous grapher... (Score:2)
2D & 3D plotsq (Score:4, Informative)
For higher dimensionality visualization, though, nobody has mentioned openDX (www.opendx.org). What other plotting and visualization program can easily plot 6-dimensional data (for example, a rank-3 tensor field) on a 3d space?
OpenDX takes a little while to really understand, but once you get it, the payoff is trmendous. It has a very general data model that allow one to have arbitrary topology connecting your values, from completely scattered points with no explicit relation, to various meshes such as simplices (triangles/tets), cubic/hypercubic lattices, and many more.
Also, it represents data in files very flexibly, so one can put structural information in a small, simple file, and reference a larger (potentially huge), external file for the actual data.
pychart (Score:1)
What ARE you asking? (Score:1, Troll)
You need bar graphs --
pic, grap (you will have to add), gnuplot, postscript.
All more complicated than OO. pic is a drawing language for troff. grap will do simple graphs (but you will have to download and install it), gnuplot is a workhorse for doing plots, but is many times more difficult than OO. And, you can always program in postscript directly! [and there are many more ways to make simple charts, including paint style programs).
Or, use OO.org
With OO.org,
matplotlib / pylab (Score:2)
matplotlib site [sourceforge.net]
Also... (Score:2)
Since you don't specify free software, can I recommend the graphical capabilities of Matlab [mathworks.com]? As well as being endlessly scriptable and versatile, there's a GUI so you can place text and symbols anywhere you like. There's a native Linux version, and as you're a student you should be able to buy
Veusz (Score:3, Interesting)
Jeremy
GMT (Score:1)
generates postscript too, so it should be easy to integrate into your other docs
If your school has licenses, (Score:1)
I'm a huge open source fan, and it really riles me to have to use proprietary software, but it's hard to match what IDL can do. With a little practice you can go from raw data to publication quality plots in a staggeringly short period of time.
So far I've yet to find anything close in the open
Tecplot (Score:1)
jgraph (Score:2)