Re: graphics issues (was: Re: moving toward a 3.0 release)

[Joe Koski]

on 9/29/06 11:38 AM, John W. Eaton at address@hidden wrote:

> On 29-Sep-2006, Shai Ayal wrote:
> 
> | While OpenGL will take care of all the 3D stuff, you still have all
> | the "graph" things to take care of -- axes, tics, legends, titles
> | etc... All are "trivial" but with many small annoying details (auto
> | axes limits and ticks is quite hard IMHO). this is quite a lot of
> | work. octplot is under development for more than 2 years (although
> | it's not very intensive development) and these things are still far
> | from prefect
> 
> I agree that these little details, while each may seem like a simple
> problem, add up to a major headache, especially given that the code
> already exists in other places (gnuplot, plplot, NCAR graphics, etc.).
> 
> My preference would be to use some existing code if at all possible,
> but I don't know where to find something that is relatively easy to
> use and not closely tied to a specific plotting package.
> 
> jwe
> 
A couple of points. I have the post-processor called smokeview for the NIST
FDS code (see http://fire.nist.gov/fds/ ). It is an OpenGL application and
runs on my Mac (without X11) with 3D displays that I can rotate, change the
viewpoint, etc. without the delays or "inertia" that feel when I'm using
other applications. Whether a graphics language can run natively on many
platforms, including Windows and Macs, should be a major consideration.
Apparently OpenGL has that capability, but I'm no expert, so maybe someone
can comment on that.

Second, the plplot folks have been very active lately, enhancing the
package, so maybe plplot should be reevaluated, especially since there is
already an octave binding included in the plplot distribution. The plplot
folks are adding a wxwidgets driver. Is that tied to X11? The "widgets" in
the name sure sounds like X11 is involved. What is the potential impact of
wxwidgets on octave? I did play with octave/plplot a year or two ago, and
found myself going back to gnuplot. Back then, plplot's main use was for
salvaging the graphics on old legacy codes that had outlived their
commercial graphics interface (remember DISSPLA?). Maybe now it's different.

Joe