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GNUPLOT


written by Thomas Williams & Colin Kelley


Gnuplot is a command-driven interactive function plotting program that can run on most types of computers. The Graphics Group currently supports versions for Unix (Cray J90, Sun, SGI, DEC/OSF) and VAX/VMS. Gnuplot is copyrighted but it is free to use.

Gnuplot plots any number of functions, built up of C operators, C library functions, and some things C doesn't have like **, sgn(), etc. There is also support for plotting data files, to com- pare actual data to theoretical curves.

Some of the features of Gnuplot are:

  • plotting of data files.
  • User defined X and Y ranges (optional auto_ranging).
  • Smart axes scaling, smart tic marks, and labeling of X and Y axes.
  • A load and save capability.
  • All computations are performed in the complex domain. Just the real part is plotted by default, but there are functions available to override this.
  • An on-line help facility
  • Command line-editing.
  • Support for lots of graphics device drivers available
    • X11,
    • PostScript
    • Tektronix 40xx
    • etc.
Gnuplot can plot 2D and 3D data sets. Some of the plotting features include line charts, error bars, contour plots, polar charts, surface plots, etc.

You can look at examples to see a sampler of what can be done. For how to access Gnuplot on the supported systems, see NERSC J90 or UNIX or VMS.


For additional assistance, please contact the Visualization Group. <graphics@nersc.gov>
Last Modified: Thursday, 23-Jan-97 00:13:39 PST