plotutils

GNU plotutils is a set of free software command-line tools and software libraries for generating 2D plot graphics based on data sets. It is used in projects such as PSPP and UMLgraph, and in many areas of academic research,^[1][2][3] and is included in many Linux distributions such as Debian^[4] and cygwin. Windows and Mac OS X versions are also available. The library provides bindings for the C and C++ languages. Its stand alone command-line tools can generate graphs and perform numerical calculation of spline curves and systems of ordinary differential equations. Plotutils is a GNU package and is distributed under a free software licence, the GPL.

History

Several utilities were inspired by Unix plotting utilities. A graph utility and various plot filters were present in the first releases of Unix from Bell Laboratories. By the time of Version 7 Unix, `graph', `plot', `spline', and several device-dependent versions of `libplot' were a standard Unix features. The first display device supported by the package was a Tektronix 611 storage scope. By the early 1980s, numerous other devices were supported.

In 1989, the first GNU versions of `graph', `plot', `tek2plot', `spline' and their respective documentation were written. Richard Stallman further directed development of the programs and documentation. The distribution, as it stood in 1991, was distributed under the name `GNU graphics'.

In 1995 the package was significantly expanded by writing a device-independent, standalone version of `libplot', and by rewriting `graph' from scratch, turning it into a real-time filter.

Features

Stand alone tools

• GNU graph, which plots 2-D datasets or data streams in real time.
• GNU plot, which translates GNU Metafile format to any of the other formats.
• GNU tek2plot, for translating Tektronix 4010 data to any of the above formats.
• GNU pic2plot, for translating the pic language to any of the above formats.
• GNU plotfont, for displaying character maps of the fonts that are available in the above formats.
• GNU spline, which does spline interpolation of data.
• GNU ode, which numerically integrates a system consisting of one or more ordinary differential equations.

Supported output formats

• X Window System display
• SVG
• PNG
• PNM
• pseudo-GIF (using run-length encoding rather than LZW to avoid the past patent issue)
• WebCGM
• Adobe Illustrator
• PostScript
• PCL
• HP-GL
• xfig

See also

• GNU Project
• gnuplot

References

External links

• Official website
• UMLgraph Automated Drawing of UML Diagrams
• GNU Plotutils
• C++ for mathematicians: an introduction for students and professionals

GNU Project
History	GNU Manifesto Free Software Foundation Europe India Latin America History of free software
Licenses	GNU General Public License GNU Lesser General Public License Affero General Public License GNU Free Documentation License GPL linking exception
Software	GNU (variants) Hurd Linux-libre glibc Bash coreutils findutils Build System GCC binutils GDB GRUB GNOME GNUstep GIMP GNU Emacs GNU TeXmacs GNU Octave GNU R GSL GMP GNU Electric GNU Archimedes GNUnet GNU Privacy Guard Gnuzilla (IceCat) GNU Health GNUmed GNU LilyPond GNU Go GNU Chess Gnash Guix Guix System Distribution more...
Public speakers	Alexandre Oliva Benjamin Mako Hill Bradley M. Kuhn Eben Moglen Federico Heinz Georg C. F. Greve John Sullivan Loïc Dachary Matt Lee Nagarjuna G. Ricardo Galli Richard Stallman Robert J. Chassell
Other topics	GNU/Linux naming controversy Revolution OS Free Software Foundation anti-Windows campaigns Defective by Design