GNU Libplot, a device-indepdent 2D graphics library

[atai ece ucsd edu (Andy Tai)]

Here is a little gem no one mentioned here. A 2d device-indendence graphics 
library that's free.   And from GNU.  Such a library is critically useful for
what-you-see-is-what-you-get GUI applications.  Do I smell capabilities similar
to Qt's painter interface in gtk?

----
from http://www.fsf.org/software/plotutils/
----



The programs graph, plot, and tek2plot are based on GNU libplot, a C function
library for device-independent two-dimensional vector graphics. GNU libplot 
is supplied as part of the plotutils package. It is compatible with the
traditional Unix libplot library, but is much more powerful. 

GNU libplot supports all the above output formats. It can draw the following. 

Graphical objects such as lines, open and closed polylines, arcs (both 
circular and elliptic), circles and ellipses, points, and markers. 
The filling of objects other than points, markers, and text strings is 
supported (fill color, as well as pen color, may be set arbitrarily). A 
wide variety of line types and marker symbols is supported. Text strings, 
in many fonts. Text strings may include subscripts and superscripts, and 
may include characters chosen from more than one font in a typeface. The 
X Window System, Postscript, and xfig drivers support the 35 standard 
Postscript fonts, and the HP-GL/2 driver supports the 45 standard PCL 
5 fonts. All drivers support a set of 16 Hershey vector fonts. This 
includes HersheyCyrillic, a Russian font that uses the KOI8-R encoding, 
and HersheyEUC, a Japanese font that uses the EUC encoding. Japanese text 
strings may include both syllabic characters (Hiragana and Katakana) and 
ideographic characters (Kanji).  A library of over 600 Kanji is built in. 
							   
When using libplot, a programmer draws vector graphics in a `user frame', 
rather than in a device frame. As in Postscript, the user frame may be 
transformed into the device frame by an arbitrary affine map. Scaling, 
rotation, shearing, and translation are all supported. 

-- 
Li-Cheng Tai (Andy Tai)                       e-mail: atai@ece.ucsd.edu

Free software:  the software by the people, of the people and for the people,
worldwide.  Develop! Share! Enhance! And enjoy!