Re: [gtk-list] Re: Plotting widget?

[Conrad Steenberg <conrad srl caltech edu>]

On Thu, 17 Sep 1998, Jon Trowbridge wrote:

> On Thu, Sep 17, 1998 at 08:47:21AM +0200, Andreas Tille wrote:
> > Yesterday in the late evening I steped over GNU plotutils.  I wonder if
> > it is possible to use libplot for this purpose?  Why doing things from
> > scratch if there are libraries to use?  May be the library can profit from
> > your investigations in guppi.
> 
> The problem with plotutils is that, while a nice package, it is
> inherently non-interactive.  It renders static images.
> 
> For Guppi, we want to provide the ability to manipulate the plot
> interactively, with things like mouse-driven zooming and panning.  The
> gtk-- plot/drawing widgets also allow for animated displays.

If I can step in here... :-)

I'm busy writing a GPL scientific plotting package that will provide
those, but I am using libplot. There is nothing inherently static about
libplot, it just draws things on 'plotter devices'. This includes X
windows, pixmaps and Postscript devices/files. It provides explicit
support for animation. I'm not certain if zooming/panning would entail
redrawing the objects on the page, but the library does provide support
for coordinate system transformations (aka pan/zoom, but also rotation). 

While my code is still in early development, anybody can contact me for
example code on using libplot in GTK. It's really trivial!

The plotting tool uses an embedded version of the yorick interpreter, so
that I don't have to reinvent the wheel. This makes it scriptable, while
the GTK interface makes it interactive. The GTK interface will include a
spreadheet to manipulate data. 

At the moment, the yorick interface is done (and very fast), it is
possible to contruct multiple documents (shown in a tree widget)
containing multiple pages of different paper types, including an onscreen
'image' type. The page viewer can display the page arbitrarily zoomed
(assuming you have enough memory of course, this will be fixed in future).

On my TODO list next are coordinate systems (within coordinate systems,
etc) and different frames for these coordinate systems (boxes with ticks,
labels, titles, grids). After that comes actual objects in these
coordinate systems, scatter/line plots, boxes, circles, contour diagrams
etc.

Whatt's nice about libplot is that you can plot to different devoces using
the same commands, so Postscript printing merely entails opening a
Postscript device and sending all your plotting commands to it, same as
you would for a pixmap.

I wasn't going to announce this now already, but what the heck. If someone
is interested in joining the development, please contact me directly. I
know this is an important application for GTK, so this is your chance to
make your contribution!

Cheers

Conrad

*-----------------------------------------*                                  
| Conrad Steenberg                        |                                  
| Caltech, Mail Code 220-47               |                                  
| Pasadena, CA, 91125                     |                                  
| e-mail: conrad@srl.caltech.edu          |                                  
| Tel: (626) 395-2965 Fax: (626) 449-8676 |                                  
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