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.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
gnuplot Cookbook
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Finding Help and Information
Index

Positioning plots manually


If you need an arrangement of figures other than a regular rectangular array, you must specify the origin and size for each plot manually. The following figure provides an example:

The happy face shown in the previous figure is a simple example of what you can achieve with manual plot positioning; using these commands, figures of frightening complexity can be built up.

How to do it…

The following script shows how to use gnuplot's manual positioning commands:

set multiplot
unset key
unset tics
set polar
set size 1, .5
plot [pi:2*pi] 1 lw 5
set origin 0, .5
set size .5, .5
plot 1 lw 2, .2 with filledcurves
set origin .5, .5
plot 1 lw 2, .2 with filledcurves
unset multiplot

How it works…

Arbitrary sizing and positioning of individual plots is accomplished using the two new commands that we have highlighted in the previous script. After entering multiplot mode, the set origin command can be used to set the position of the lower-left corner of the next plot. The set size...