From octave-graphics-request at bevo dot che dot wisc dot edu Fri Feb 25 07:38:42 2000 Subject: Re: New on the list : new plotting tool From: Rafael Laboissiere To: Tim Piessens Cc: Discussion list octave-graphics , Regis Gras , Christian Bulfone Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2000 14:35:12 +0100 On Tue, Feb 22, 2000 at 10:10:35AM +0100, Tim Piessens wrote: > I thought about a modular server-client solution where a server stores > the plot-information in a struct/class. Octave would be a client that > plots in the server by a series of get/set commands to gain matlab > compatibility. plotting devices will also be clients. In a first > implementation this can be a connection to gnuplot but since it is > modular a new interface (for instance using GNOME) can be made. There are two separate issues here. The first of them is the development of an API for Octave which will mimic Handle Graphics (if this does not cause trademark violations), or the definition a new plotting API for Octave. The second is the replacement of gnuplot as the plotting engine. I think that the present mailing list aims to discuss both issues. As regards the second issue, I got involved recently with the development of PLplot, a nice GPL'd plotting library. Its development has just restarted and will be soon available at plplot.sourceforge.net (for now, try http://emma.la.asu.edu/plplot/). As a Debian developer, I packaged both plplot and a Octave_Plplot (http://merlin.inescn.pt/~qual/plplot_octave/plplot_octave.html) for Debian. This is a quite good candidate for the replacement of Gnuplot. Together with other collaborators, we are studying the extension of the X11 driver of PLplot towards a client/server architecture. This is a very preliminary study and nothing is worth releasing for now. We are also planning to improve this new driver by adding a GUI (which will be optional at run time), based probably on GTK+ and some Gnome libraries (we are considering using the great Gnome canvas). Of course, using the gnome libraries will not add bloat to Octave, as the said libraries are very thin (only 124 K of installed size in my Debian GNU/Linux box). -- Rafael Laboissiere