Book Image

gnuplot Cookbook

By : Lee Phillips
Book Image

gnuplot Cookbook

By: Lee Phillips

Overview of this book

gnuplot is the world's finest technical plotting software, used by scientists, engineers, and others for many years. It is in constant development and runs on practically every operating system, and can produce output in almost any format. The quality of its 3d plots is unmatched and its ability to be incorporated into computer programs and document preparation systems is excellent. gnuplot Cookbook ñ it will help you master gnuplot. Start using gnuplot immediately to solve your problems in data analysis and presentation. Quickly find a visual example of the graph you want to make and see a complete, working script for producing it. Learn how to use the new features in gnuplot 4.4. Find clearly explained, working examples of using gnuplot with LaTeX and with your own computer programming language. You will master all the ins and outs of gnuplot through gnuplot Cookbook. You will learn to plot basic 2d to complex 3d plots, annotate from simple labels to equations, integrate from simple scripts to full documents and computer progams. You will be taught to annotate graphs with equations and symbols that match the style of the rest of your text, thus creating a seamless, professional document. You will be guided to create a web page with an interactive graph, and add graphical output to your simulation or numerical analysis program. Start using all of gnuplot's simple to complex features to suit your needs, without studying its 200 page manual through this Cookbook.

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gnuplot Cookbook
Lee Phillips
Feb, 2012 | 220 pages
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Table of Contents (18 chapters)
gnuplot Cookbook
gnuplot Cookbook
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Plotting Curves, Boxes, Points, and more
Plotting Curves, Boxes, Points, and more
Introduction
Plotting a function
Plotting multiple curves
Using two different y-axes
Making a scatterplot
Plotting boxes
Plotting circles
Drawing filled curves
Handling financial data
Making a basic histogram plot
Stacking histograms
Plotting multiple histograms
Dealing with errors
Making a statistical whisker plot
Making an impulse plot
Graphing parametric curves
Plotting with polar coordinates
2
Annotating with Labels and Legends
Annotating with Labels and Legends
Introduction
Labeling the axes
Setting the label size
Adding a legend
Putting a box around the legend
Adding a label with an arrow
Using Unicode characters [new]
Putting equations in your labels
3
Applying Colors and Styles
Applying Colors and Styles
Introduction
Coloring your curves
Styling your curves
Applying transparency [new]
Plotting points with curves
Changing the point style
Changing the plot size
Positioning graphs on the page [new]
Plotting with objects [new]
4
Controlling your Tics
Controlling your Tics
Introduction
Adding minor tics
Placing tics on the second y-axis
Adjusting the tic size
Removing all tics
Defining the tic values
Making the tics stick out
Setting manual tics
Plotting with dates and times
Changing the language used for labels [new]
Using European-style decimals [new]
Formatting tic labels
5
Combining Multiple Plots
Combining Multiple Plots
Introduction
Arranging an array of plots
Positioning plots manually
Creating an inset plot
Multiplotting with labels and arrows
6
Including Plots in Documents
Including Plots in Documents
Introduction
Introducing gnuplot's high-quality graphics formats [new]
Adding a plot to a paper using LaTeX
Assembling a document using TikZ and LaTeX [new]
Assembling a document using epslatex
Using gnuplot within LaTeX
Creating presentation slides with incrementally displayed graphs
Including a plot in a web page
Making an interactive plot for the Web [new]
7
Programming gnuplot and Dealing with Data
Programming gnuplot and Dealing with Data
Introduction
Scripting gnuplot with its own language
Plotting on subintervals
Smoothing your data
Fitting functions to your data
Using kdensity smoothing to improve on histograms [new]
Creating a cumulative distribution [new]
Talking to gnuplot with C
Scripting gnuplot with Python
Plotting with Clojure
Handling volatile data [new]
8
The Third Dimension
The Third Dimension
Introduction
Making a surface plot
Using coordinate mappings
Coloring the surface
Making a contour plot
Making a vector plot
Making an image plot or heat map
Combining contours and images
Combining surfaces with images
Plotting a path in 3D
Drawing parametric surfaces
9
Using and Making Graphical User Interfaces
Using and Making Graphical User Interfaces
Introduction
Using the Java gnuplot GUI JGP
Using the Emacs GUI
Sharing with Plotshare
Writing a web GUI for gnuplot
10
Surveying Special Topics
Surveying Special Topics
Introduction
Avoiding overlapping labels
Plotting labels from files
Mapping the Earth
Making a labeled contour plot
Softening the axes
Putting arrows on the axes
Plotting with pictures
Breaking an axis
Fitting the grid to the data
Coloring the axes
Finding Help and Information
Finding Help and Information
Index
Index

Changing the plot size

The size of the graph is specified as a size option to the set term command. The exact interpretation of this option may vary between terminals, and has changed in recent versions of gnuplot. We'll give an example of its most recent usage in gnuplot 4.4. The following figure illustrates the use of the size option in gnuplot:

How to do it…

The figure consists of three separate files created by gnuplot using the following recipe:

unset key
set term postscript size 6,2
set out 'p1.ps'
plot sin(x)
set term postscript size 5,5
set out 'p2.ps'
plot sin(x)
set term postscript size 3,6
set out 'p3.ps'
plot sin(x)

How it works…

First we turn off the legend, which gets in the way of the plots in this example. The set term commands each have a single size option, which sets the horizontal and vertical extents of the graphs in inches. Each plot is saved to a separate file with a set out command; the files were assembled in a graphics program into the figure. In general, especially...

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