2D Plot

Overview

This is a general xy plotting program. There can be an unlimited number of graphs loaded into the program at one time. Multiple curves can be drawn on each graph. Various attributes of the graphs can be controlled from the user interface or command line. Initial curve attributes are set from information stored in the input data file.

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Input File

To load a file enter its name in the field next to the "Plot filename" button, or press the "Plot filename" button to browse for the file. The file is expected to be in ASCII format with one line for each x/y coordinate pair and some special lines which are used to declare the start of a new plot, declare the start of each curve, and provide labels for the plot and axes. The nature of the special lines is set by the first character on the line; the special lines that are recognized are:

T: Signals the creation of a new plot. The rest of the line is used as the title of the plot.
Y: Everything appearing on the line after the initial Y is used as the y axis label.
X: Everything appearing on the line after the initial X is used as the x axis label.
L: Signals the creation of a new curve within the current plot. Everything between the initial L and the first exclamation point (if any) is used as the label for the curve. If there is no exclamation point on the line, the points that make up the curve are not specially marked but are connected with a solid line. If there is an exclamation point on the line, it should be followed with a single character, another exclamation point, and then either the character '0' or the character '1'. The character between the exclamation points is used to mark each location of a point in the curve. The points are connected with a solid line if the character after the second exclamation point is '1' and are not connected with a line if it is not.

For one plot containing a single curve, the minimal input file would have its first line starting with T (to create the plot), the second line starting with L (to create the curve), and then the pairs of x and y coordinate data, one per line, after that. A slightly more involved example with labels and one plot with three curves (one solid, two shown as scatter plots) is show below:

THeat Shock Response
XTime in heat shock (minutes)
YProbe intensity (counts)
LWild type
0   60
10  50
20  750
30  1000
40  1100
LStrain a!a!0
0   50
10  60
20  45
30  65
40  70
LStrain b!b!0
0   57
10  400
20  850
30  1200
40  1150

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Graph Settings

Use the controls which appear just to the right of the "Graph #" button to jump between the different graphs that are present in the input file. The index of the plot currently on view is displayed in the text field and may be modified in order to jump directly to another graph. Alternatively, press the arrow key to the left of the text field to cause the previous graph to be displayed or the arrow key to the right of the text field to cause the next graph to be displayed. Rather than using the arrow buttons, the middle and right mouse buttons may be used while the pointer is in the graph window.

If the "all graphs" toggle is on, changes made to any curve attributes will be applied to all the graphs. When it is off, only the current graph will be changed.

If the "show legend" toggle is on, a legend, listing the labels for all curves in the graph and the corresponding combination of color and marker type, is shown at the bottom of the graph window. When the toggle is off the legend is not shown.

Use the "Scale..." button to the far right of the "Graph #" button to open a dialog with controls for the axis bounds, number of tick marks, and format of the tick mark labels.

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Mouse

While the mouse is over the graph window, the mouse buttons have the following effects:

Left: Pressing the left mouse button and moving the mouse will shift the image display. This is useful when you want to view the legend, but because the plot has a large number of curves, the legend extends off the bottom edge of the plot window.
Middle: Click the middle mouse button to view the previous graph.
Right: Click the right mouse button to view the next graph.

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Curve attributes

Use the controls to the right of the "Curve #" button to modify the attributes for a curve. Immediately to the right of the "Curve #" button is a menu which shows the number of curve; the attributes of that curve are reflected in all the remaining controls on the line. If you select a different curve from the menu, then the attributes of the new curve will be shown.

The second menu displays the color used for the markers and lines belonging to the current curve and may be used to modify that color. The third menu displays the style of line used for the current curve and may be used to modify the style. There are two options available:

line: With this option, points on the curve are connected with a solid line.
no line: With this option, points on the curve are not connected.

The fourth menu, immediately to the right of the "Symbol" button, displays the style of marker used for points on the current curve and may be used to change that style. There are four options available:

None: With this option, no marker appears at the location of each point in the curve.
Character: With this option, each point in the curve is marked with a single character. The character used is shown in the field next to the menu and that field may be used to change the character.
Triangle: With this option, each point in the curve is marked with a triangle.
Box: With this option, each point in the curve is marked with a square.

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Scaling

The scaling dialog (to open it press the "Scale..." button in 2D Plot's main dialog) can be used to modify the range covered by the axes, the number of tick marks along each axis, and the labeling style for the tick marks. The "Reset" button in the scaling dialog restores the bounds for the x and y axes to their default values.

The number of decimal places specified for the tick mark labels is ignored when the tick mark labels are formatted as integers or the format is automatically chosen. To have the application automatically select the number of decimal places to use, use a value of -1 for the number of decimal places.

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Command line

The allowed format for 2D Plot's command line is (optional parameters or arguments are show in brackets):
2d_plot [filename] [-nxtick nx] [-nytick ny] [-xminmax x_min x_max]
[-yminmax y_min y_max] [-xticklab x_style] [-yticklab y_style] [-xtickdec number] [ytickdec number]

The meanings of the different arguments and options are:

filename: The file named filename will be opened and displayed when 2d_plot starts.
-nxtick: If this option is present, the next argument sets the number of tick marks to use along the x axis.
-nytick: If this option is present, the next argument sets the number of tick marks to use along the y axis.
-xminmax: If this option is present, the next argument sets the lower bound on the x axis and the argument after that sets the upper bound on the x axis. This only has an effect if a file is specified on the command line and it only affects the first graph in that file.
-yminmax: If this option is present, the next argument sets the lower bound on the y axis and the argument after that sets the upper bound on the y axis. This only has an effect if a file is specified on the command line and it only affects the first graph in that file.
-xticklab: If this option is present, the next argument sets the style used for the tick mark labels on the x axis. There are four possible styles: 0 which causes the labels to be displayed as integers, 1 which causes the labels to be displayed as real values in a fixed-point format, 2 which causes the labels to be displayed as real values in an exponential format, and any other value which causes the format to be chosen dynamically depending on the bounds and increment between ticks.
-yticklab: Is identical to -xticklab but affects the style used for the tick mark labels on the y axis.
-xtickdec: If this option is present, the next argument sets the number of decimal places to use for tick mark labels along the x axis. This has no effect if the tick mark labels are dynamically formatted or formatted as integers. If the number of decimal places is negative, the application will dynamically choose an appropriate value.
-ytickdec: Is identical to -xtickdec but affects the number of decimal places in tick mark labels along the y axis.

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Printing

The printing dialog (to open it press the "Print..." button in 2D Plot's main dialog) can be used to generate a PostScript copy of the plot or print the plot. The controls in the dialog are:

Left/right/top/bottom margin: The field next to this button can be used to modify the settings for the margins. All values are in inches. Increasing the margin on top to 1.5 shows the title of the plot.
Margin default: Press this button to restore the default margin settings (left and right margins of one inch and top and bottom margins of one and a half inches).
Color: If this toggle button is on, a color PostScript version of the graph is generated. Otherwise, all lines, markers, and labels are drawn in black.
Print to file: If the "Print to file" toggle button is on, pressing the "Print" button will generate a PostScript file rather than send the PostScript result directly to a printer. On Linux and Mac OS X, this toggle button is always on: 2d_plot has not been fixed to interact with the printing mechanisms for those operating systems.
Preview: Pressing the "Preview" button will display on the monitor what the printed output would look like. On Linux and Mac OS X, this button is always disable since 2d_plot has not been fixed to recognize the native PostScript viewer.
Print: If the "Print to file" toggle button is off, pressing the "Print" button opens a dialog to send the PostScript version of the plot directly to a printer; otherwise, a file selection dialog is displayed to choose the name of the file in which to store the PostScript output.
Close: Closes the printing dialog.

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