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Gnuplot.jl

A Julia interface to gnuplot.

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The Gnuplot.jl package allows easy and fast use of gnuplot as a data visualization tool in Julia. Have a look at Basic usage and Examples for a quick overview. The package main features are:

If you're unfamiliar with gnuplot have a look at:

Yet another plotting package?

A powerful plotting framework is among the most important tool in the toolbox of any modern scientist and engineer. As such, it is hard to find a single package to fit all needs, and many solutions are indeed available in the Julia ecosystem.

Gnuplot.jl package fills the niche of users who needs:

  1. publication-quality plots, by exploiting the capabilities of a widely used tool such as gnuplot, and its many output formats available;
  2. a well-documented framework, by taking advantage of all the gnuplot documentation, tutorials and examples available on the web;
  3. a fast response, by relying on an external program (rather than on a large Julia code base);
  4. an interactive data exploration framework, by exposing a carefully designed, extremely concise and easy to remember syntax (at least for users with minimal gnuplot knowledge);
  5. a procedure to decouple plot data and aesthetics from the Julia code used to generate them.

Unlike other packages Gnuplot.jl is not a pure Julia solution as it depends on an external package to actually generate plots. However, if gnuplot is not available on a given platform, the package could still be used in "dry" mode, and no error for a missing dependency will be raised (see Dry sessions).

The Gnuplot.jl package development follows a minimalistic approach: it is essentially a thin layer to send data and commands to gnuplot. This way all underlying capabilities, both present and future ones, are automatically exposed to the Julia user, with no need to implement dedicated wrappers.

The functionalities 1, 2 and 3 listed above are similar to those provided by the Gaston package. Gnuplot.jl also provides features 4 and 5, as well as the minimalistic approach.

Does Gnuplot.jl suit my needs?

Any modern plotting framework is able to produce a simple scatter plot, with custom symbols, line styles, colors and axis labels. Indeed, this is exactly the example that is reported in every package documentation (also here: see 2D plots). Still, producing complex and publication-quality plots is not an easy task. As a consequence is also hard to tell whether a package can cope with the most difficult cases, unless you actually try it out. A reasonable choice, then, is to rely on the size of the user base, the availability of documentation / tutorials, and the possibility to preview complex examples.

By allowing transparent access to the underlying gnuplot process, the Gnuplot.jl package immediately exposes all capabilities of the backend and allows to take advantage of the many resources available online. The minimalistic approach allows to value the widely spread knowledge of gnuplot syntax, and ensures a shallow learning curve for the package. Finally, its extremely concise syntax makes it ideal for interactive data exploration.

As a final remark, note that the Gnuplot.jl features directly maps onto the different stages of production of a plot:

Before continuing, have a look at the Examples page!

Notation

In this documentation:

Table of Contents