PLOT 1.2 © AG BAXTER This is program placed in the Public Domain for free use WITH THE SPECIFIC EXCEPTION OF REDISTRIBUTION FOR PROFIT. June 1989 Walter & Eliza Hall Institute, c/o PostOffice, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville 3053. VICTORIA PLOT 1.2 is an intuition interface for the data plotting programs MultiPlot and ThreeDPlot, which were written by Tim Mooney and have been placed in the public domain. These programs are powerful tools for manipulating data but are marred by their inconvenience to use. ThreeDPlot requires that the data file be converted to binary before loading, both programs output files which need further processing before they can be input into a CAD program, and both use complex command line arguments which may discourage some users. PLOT 1.2 corrects these faults and provides a convenient way to use these excellent programs swifty and conveniently, providing the appearance of a single integrated data manipulation system. SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Amiga with a minimum of 512K memory (1MB is useful), Amiga DOS, the assignment of a T: directory (assign to disk if <1MB memory), a window based screen editor, the presence of "run", "copy" and "cd" in the C: directory, and the font ruby 12 in the FONTS: directory. If the version of Plot you have is 1.21, you will also need the newcon- handler (DOS 1.3) in the l: directory. The following files should be in a single directory, either assigned the name "PLOT:" or in the root directory of a volume (disk) titled PLOT. FILES Plot Intuition interface Multiplot 2D plotting program ThreeDPlot 3D net plotting program Txt_2_Icad Converts output from Multiplot and ThreeDPlot to IntroCAD Plot2Draw Converts output from Mutiplot and ThreeDPlot to Draw format. Plot2mCAD Adds an icon to output from Multiplot and ThreeDPlot. Dat_2_Bin Converts data to a format accepted by ThreeDPlot Icad_2_Text Converts IntroCAD format to mCAD format PLOT Plot may be started from the CLI by typing "PLOT" at the prompt, or from WorkBench by double clicking its icon. It will open its own window with a tile bar and menu strip at the top. Beneath the title bar are three large buttons. The buttons labeled "2D PLOT" and "3D PLOT" are mutually exclusive and one should be selected before plotting your data. The middle button labeled "EDIT" calls up the editor of your choice from within Plot and loads the file listed in the FileName selector. This allows you to edit or create a data file without exiting PLOT. A new file may be created by entering a novel name, clicking on the "EDIT" button, hitting "OK" on the warning that a file of that name does not exist, and then selecting "YES" when asked if you would like to create a new file. Beneath these three buttons is the FileName requester in which you enter the full pathname of the file you wish to edit or plot, and the "PATH" button which will call up a directory-listing style of file requester. The next part of the screen is devided into two. On the left side is a series of buttons related to plotting 2D graphs, and on the right side is a series on buttons for selecting options when plotting 3D graphs. The 2D plotting buttons largely describe the data file format (see below). The 3D plotting buttons toggle options such as cross net for 3D plot, axes, and rendering of the underside of the 3D plot. The best way to find out what these do is to try them out on the data file PLOT:data/plot3D. DATAFILE FORMATS A 2D data file is flexible in format. It must contain values in columns, but what values in which columns can be varied. A good scheme is to place the X values in the first column, Y values in the second and values of Error-in-Y in the third (if they exist). Whatever you choose, indicate your format to PLOT by pushing the selection buttons on the left of the screen. If none are selected, PLOT will default to X in the first column, Y in the second, and will not plot error bars. The 3D PLOT part of the program is a lot more fussy about the format of its data file. If the file is not correct in format, it will cause the computer to crash. A future enhancement of plot will be 3D data file format checking, but for now, you will just have to be careful. The 3D data file must consist of a single column of numbers with the exception of the first line which must contain the number of X values and the number of Y values with a single space between the two figures. Directly below this line in the first column of the screen should be first the X values in increasing order and then the Y values in increasing order. Below this should be the Z values, reading left to right for each row from the front to the back. The last line of the data file should be the string "end_of_file" without the quotes. See ThreeDPlot.doc for more information. The on/off buttons on the right side of the screen can be used to select the options for the 3D plot. The default is for the crossnet, axes and the underside to be drawn. PLOTTING The large button at the bottom of the screen makes it all happen. Both types of PLOTs will open an interactive window to communicate with you. For a 2D plot, this is called the "How To" window, and can be recalled from within the plot to change some options. These options are extensive and received as a command string which describes to Multiplot the required tick spacing, whether a grid is desired, point size, presence of error bars and line colours. A full description of the command arguments may be obtained by hitting "?" at the "How To" prompt. You will have to resize to window to read all the help message. A default plot will be obtained by simply hitting return at the prompt. The window opened for a 3D plot doesn't expect any input from you. It lets you know how it is getting on plotting your picture. A complex 3D graph will take many minutes to calculate, so be patient. When the data has been processed, the program will ask you for the veiwing angle you would like to veiw the graph from. Hitting return will give you a sensible default. The screen will go blank while PLOT calculates the screen image. Again BE PATIENT. Your Amiga will be working flat out calculating the 3D image. THIS PROGRAM DOES NOT HANG!!! When the graph is drawn, the veiwing angle can be changed by hitting the cursor keys. This has the effect of moving the corner of the net nearest to you 10° in the direction of the arrow on the cursor key. Recalculation takes about the same length of time as calculating the image the first time. The commonest problem people find when they use PLOT is they try to plot an enormous 3D plot, hit a few keys, wonder why nothing happens and then complain about the screen redrawing itself spontaneously a minute later. REMEMBER... YOU ARE ONLY RUNNING A 68000! IT TAKES A WHILE TO DO SEVERAL MILLION CALCULATIONS!!! *******----->>>> WAIT <<<<-------******* After selecting any of the menu options you will need to hit a cursor key to redraw the graph with the new options. In this way, multiple new options may be included before redrawing. If you select the "Make CADFile" munu option, nothing will happen until after you quit the ThreeDPlot screen. The CAD file will then be written to the same directory that the data was obtained from. This again requires some calculation, so on returning to the PLOT window, WAIT UNTIL AFTER THE DISK IS ACCESSED if you have saved the graph before pushing any other buttons. The calculation and writing time is particularly long if writing in the DRAW format. For example a net plot with 10,000 intersections will take about HALF AN HOUR TO WRITE in Draw format. This is a problem with the Draw file format, and cannot be expected to improve dramatically in future releases. SAVING DEFAULTS PLOT now supports saveable defaults. These are for the screen editor, mode (2D or 3D), and file format (Draw, IntroCAD or mCAD). If a file named Plot.def is in the PLOT: directory, this will always be used and cannot be overwritten. If you don't like these defaults, delete this file. On saving defaults, a file of the same name is written to the s: directory. This is the second location searched for the default file on starting up. To change these defaults, change the selections for editor, mode and file format and select Save Defaults from the Project Menu. To change the editor, select Define Editor from the Edit menu. You will be presented with a box to write the name of the editor you prefer to use. You can include any command line arguments that the editor accepts between its name and the name of the file to be edited. EGs: ed use the WB editor sys:system/Memacs use this editor which is not in c: DME -t46 -l0 -w640 -h124 use this editor with a nice sized window After entering the editor and file path if not in the c: directory, plus any arguments if desired, click the use box. The newly selected editor will now be used for the rest of the session. To save the default for next time, select Save Defaults from the Project Menu, and ensure there is not a file called Plot.def in the PLOT: directory. CHANGING OUTPUT FILE FORMAT To change the file format your plot will be saved in, select the desired format from the Format Menu. This must be done before starting the plot. If you only use one CAD program, save this format as your default. The format which is active at the time of saving defaults is the one that will become your default format. BITS AND PIECES Please note the following: # Values along the axes are not saved in the CAD files. You will have to them back in in a drawing program. # Draw output is currently only in one colour. # Neither Draw nor mCAD can be started by clicking on the project icons of a saved file (Their fault, not mine). IntroCAD can. # In 2D Plots, the line between the second last and last data point is not included in the saved file. This is to allow space between the intended last point and the extra one you are all going to add to the end of your data files to sit in the border. This is because the border is drawn as close to the plotted data as possible and obscures the last point and its error bar. # The IntroCAD format allows Quad density dot matrix printed output if you own IntroCAD. The Draw format allows Laser printing if you own a good DTP package. # Neither Professional Page nor PageStream handle Draw files with large dimensions very well. If your dimensions are greater than 200 units, these programs often scramble the data. Rescale your data to keep within these limits if you wish to import to either of these programs. # If you are not sure about how a feature works, test it out on a little file first. Enormous plots look great but take an enourmous amount of time to generate. # To get the hang of the program and its data file formats, have a look at PLOT:data/graph2D and PLOT:data/graph3D, both supplied with PLOT. For a thrill, plot PLOT:cos3D. RELEASE HISTORY Feb 1988 Batch file version. Feb 1989 First version of Plot. No file requester. IntroCAD only. Apr 1989 PLOT 1.0 released. Jun 1989 Added menus, definable editor, defaults, Draw and mCAD support, changed to NTSC sized screen. THANKS Thanks to Tim Mooney for writing MultiPlot, ThreeDPlot, IntroCAD and others, and for sending the source and suggestions freely. Thanks to Charlie Heath for the file requester, and to Graeme Riddle for testing and suggestions. Bug finds and suggestions for PLOT to me at the above address. Source available on request. Praise for the programs Multiplot and ThreeDPlot to: Tim Mooney 5904 Vandegrift Ave. Rockville, MD 20851 USA