As a working scientist, I do a lot of data plotting. Most of these plots are for internal consumption, as I try to tease meaning out of data.
I tend to use gnuplot a lot, because I've gotten extremely used to it.
However, every once in a while I have to make a plot for external consumption.
For the longest time, I've relied on Grace for my journal quality plots.
Last week, I discovered Veusz (pronounced "views"). It is a python based program for 2D plots, which feels truly modern.
Grace hasn't been updated in a while, and while it works fine for the most part, from an aesthetic standpoint, it feels like your friend from the eighties, who did not realize that bell-bottoms went out of fashion.
It is multiplatform (runs on Linux, MacOS and Windows), exports to a wide variety of useful formats (EPS, PDF, SVG, TIFF), and is unfettered by some of the legacy issues surrounding Grace (multiple plots) such as:
I tend to use gnuplot a lot, because I've gotten extremely used to it.
However, every once in a while I have to make a plot for external consumption.
For the longest time, I've relied on Grace for my journal quality plots.
Last week, I discovered Veusz (pronounced "views"). It is a python based program for 2D plots, which feels truly modern.
Grace hasn't been updated in a while, and while it works fine for the most part, from an aesthetic standpoint, it feels like your friend from the eighties, who did not realize that bell-bottoms went out of fashion.
It is multiplatform (runs on Linux, MacOS and Windows), exports to a wide variety of useful formats (EPS, PDF, SVG, TIFF), and is unfettered by some of the legacy issues surrounding Grace (multiple plots) such as:
- multiple plots/insets are a cinch
- subscripts/superscripts use latex notation
- presence of an undo button
- more concise and readable scripts
- import from a wide variety of formats
- ability to link to data files instead of loading them in
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