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Re: Systems for writing a science app front-end




On Sun, 28 Aug 2005, Neil Pilgrim wrote:

Carlo Segre wrote:

While it is possible to feed gnuplot from an external script, we have recently been developing a gnuplot replacement using python, wxwidgets and matplotlib. The intent is to have a standalone tool for plotting as well as something that can be integrated more completly into a GUI.

For my 3D data output (2D I manage in grace), I output files with config options for gnuplot, then an instruction to read data from 'stdin', ie. the rest of the file. Through including other files, I can set 'global' options, and then run something like 'gnuplot *.Density.gnu' and generate a sequence of png files, which I slideshow using 'display' (imagemagick) and filter using grep et al. This works rather well, although I'm sure there is a better way :)

Grace is nice for publication quality but the newer version (6) will not permit scripting from external programs (if I read the documentation correctly)


While initially I was keen to get a 3d plotting tool analogous to xmgrace for 2D, the scripts I have built up for gnuplot work well and do not require too much repetitive gui 'clicking' (I understand that xmgrace can be scripted, but haven't really got into it - and it only handles 2D after all).

Initially, we started with Tk then moved to pyplot but the current combination or wxwidgets and matplotlib seems to be a better bet for portability and support in the future.

Are you intending to release this as a separate project, or is this an internal effort?

We will release it.  It is just not quite ready yet.

Cheers,

Carlo



--
Carlo U. Segre -- Professor of Physics
Associate Dean for Special Projects, Graduate College
Illinois Institute of Technology
Voice: 312.567.3498            Fax: 312.567.3494
Carlo.Segre@iit.edu    http://www.iit.edu/~segre



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