Presentation quality graphs

Gnuplot?

You could probably generate them in Excel with modest effort.

It's axis default and wax crayon line default settings are silly but it can be tweaked easily and will do log/log log/lin lin/lin graphs.

You might have to do screen capture to get them as a PNG file though.

IDL will do complex visualisation of large datasets for a (high) price and a pretty steep learning curve. There are several products in between some mix of scigraph or other whose name escapes me.

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Regards, 
Martin Brown

I've got an ancient copy of Origin (4.1) that I like for pretty pictures. (It now only runs on a VM virtual machine.) It does a lot more than just graphs though and this makes it expensive.

It's hard to say about the learning curve. Simple things are simple, doing 3-D graphs and waterfalls or other things are more work. And the latest version is 9.1

"Over 200 features and improvements have been added in this latest version. See what Origin 9.1 can do and compare its features to those of your current version."

Who knows if 200 new features is a good thing?

George H.

Oh, there is also OpenDX (IBM Visualization Data Explorer) installed here, but I rarely use it. It seems to have a lot of features and is pointy-clicky, too...

Upon rereading you actually have two questions: Technically how to do it? What looks good?

Technically: I use octave's gnuplot OLD VERSION!!! [octave 2.1.50a] free, and FAST!

Look good: keep away from old style 2D plots, make the plots 3D in color with structural shading every chance you can, including perspective. Sticks in the mind better. I can still recall a plot like that from a paper I saw in 1983, just because of that unusual characteristic.

I would go with gnuplot as well. It's not a super short learning curve. Many, many output options including PNG, SVG, LaTeX, PDF, PostScript, more. Can use plot files (scripts), has macros.

Den torsdag den 12. juni 2014 16.32.49 UTC+2 skrev Spehro Pefhany:

why not use matlab? excellent plotting and export to several formats

-Lasse

Second MATLAB / Octave and a grapher, and emphasize LaTeX output.

Specifically, if you can get something that generates TikZ / PGF code for you.

Realistically.... I've seen some pretty stock Excel graphs in datasheets before. So...

Tim

-- Seven Transistor Labs Electrical Engineering Consultation Website:

Take a look at Matplotlib

, a bit of a learning curve but lots of examples available. If you go with Gnuplot you'll definitely need the book "Gnuplot in Action". Generating image files is much easier with Matplotlib than with Gnuplot.

png looks pretty terrible on paper unles you use tens of millions of pixels.

a spreadsheet like gnumeric or calc ?

print the spreadsheet area with the chart to a vector file (eg: svg or postscriot)

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umop apisdn 


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You've already investigated all the customizing options available in Matlab? I know that you can spiff up a Matlab plot considerably from what you get with the default settings, but it's too long ago for me to offer any specifics, unfortunately.

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Tim Wescott 
Control system and signal processing consulting 
www.wescottdesign.com

What if you want to change some style element for multiple graphs? if you use a 'markup' language, e.g. gnuplot, then you can just rerun your plots and get a new version. With pointy-clicky, you have to 'open, click, click, click, save' every one.

I actually use Octave (matlab clone); it can generate quite pretty output if you work it.

Hey Spef

You could try veusz, only problem with it is remembering the spelling.

Here is one I did with it, did not spend a lot of time on cosmetic aspects:

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John Devereux