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graphics issues
From: |
address@hidden |
Subject: |
graphics issues |
Date: |
Tue, 3 Oct 2006 06:21:48 +0000 (GMT) |
Hi all
The last some days, I've read the discussion about graphics
issues...
maybe this can help:
http://users.physik.tu-muenchen.
de/gammel/matpack/html/matpack_frame.html
matpack includes a 2d/3d graphics-engine...
but I haven't time to have a look on it...
Michel
----Ursprüngliche Nachricht----
Von: address@hidden
Datum: 03.10.2006 04:51
An: "Joe Koski"<address@hidden>
Kopie: "octave maintainers mailing list"<address@hidden>,
"John W. Eaton"<address@hidden>
Betreff: Re: graphics issues
Joe Koski wrote:
> 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.
>
The soon to be released gnuplot 4.2 also has a wxWidgets terminal.
I've
tried it and it looks great (anti-aliased fonts and lines). I've
been
ready to give up hope for gnuplot, but this has convinced me to
give it
a second chance. wxwidgets is a cross-platform toolkit that
supposedly
runs natively on each supported platform, so presumably this means
X11
is not required to run it on Mac or Windows. I tried plplot once
or
twice but I finally gave up on it because it found it unstable on
Linux.
With the new gnuplot release, it should not be too difficult to
add
better control over line width, color, etc. It still seems like
the
shortest path to a working backend to the object-graphics frontend.
On
the other hand, the real weakness is that gnuplot is a standalone
program, rather than a library. The main problem I see with this is
that
data is transfered via file I/O, rather than simply using on data
that
is already in memory. The new version helps a little bit because
binary
data transfer is now supported, but it's still suboptimal for
large
amounts of data. The other big benefit of the new gnuplot is
support for
images, so that the image display routines can be displayed as
plots
with the axes and titles and all.
Anyway, I don't mind dumping gnuplot when something that can
replace it
supports all of the necessary features, but I agree with John that
for
now updating the gnuplot interface seems the quickest way to get
what
people want. I'm happy to be proven wrong by the OpenGL
supporters.
-Quentin