3 ms·
I've been using GNUplot in a recent project of mine and it has really been a nice experience. The project is a toolkit for Orbital mechanics written in C. Ther
by exDM69 10y ago
I've been using GNUplot in a recent project of mine and it has really been a nice experience.
The project is a toolkit for Orbital mechanics written in C. There's a test framework that generates a physical scenario, say two satellites colliding in orbit, and then goes on to solve some difficult problem, like find when and where a collision occurs.
I've been dumping the initial situation, some auxiliary variables and the steps taken by the algorithm to simple text files and then plotting it out with GNUplot.
Sure there are a lot of alternatives, but I really didn't want to embed anything in my C program or start writing a separate plotting tool in another language.
GNUplot isn't great in interactive 3d plots but it works. For 2d plots, doing some derivatives and displaying the algorithm steps, it has worked great.
Not a pretty tool, but it does the job and I don't really know of a better tool for my use.
For ad-hoc plots, I have some key bindings in my $EDITOR for executing GNUplot. For more complex cases, I run it with a Makefile.
- dima55 10y agoLook at this: https://github.com/dkogan/feedgnuplot https://github.com/dkogan/feedgnuplot It is magical
- exDM69 10y agoThanks! I've been looking for something like this for some other projects with real time data.
- filmor 10y agoMinor nitpick, but it's "gnuplot" (a pun on the Newplot), the program is not affiliated with GNU in any way. It's not even licensed under the GPL.
- dTal 10y agoWow I didn't know this. And apparently you cant even redistribute modified source, only patchsets (like Minix) meaning it can't easily be forked. Bit scandalous that something that brands itself "gnu" isn't even free software by GNU standards.
- skissane 10y agoThey picked the name in the mid-1980s, around the same time as the GNU project was founded. Well, the GNU project came first - the GNU manifesto dates to 1985, whereas I believe the first release of gnuplot was 1986 - and the gnuplot authors were apparently aware of the GNU project at the time, but I don't know if they foresaw that GNU would be as successful as it has been. I think the gnuplot authors' naming choice is more defensible in its historical context than if someone made the same naming decision today; and, now they've been using their current name for around 30 years, they obviously don't want to change it.