Comments on: Scientific plotting on Mac OS X – Could someone tell me why they use SM?

By: Marcos

Marcos — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 02:37:44 +0000

Greek letters for the axes on the Mac … which plotting program are you asking about? SM? Some other commenter will have to help you – I don’t use SM much myself.

By: libero

libero — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 19:02:06 +0000

I have pretty much just used aquaterm which I've been happy with although I'm just a Masters student in astrophysics.

By the way, I don't want to hijack the thread but how can I use greek letters for the axes on a mac? I normally run a script to scale, plot etc. but 'enhanced' doesn't work.

By: jlu

jlu — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 17:06:33 +0000

something else entirely: python/matplotlib I like having a full programming language AND a first rate plotting package all at the same time. EPS/LATEX support is great and I can actually see what is going to be saved to an EPS file without all the hassle that IDL imposes. Lastly, this all works within PyRAF/IRAF as well so I don’t have to have separate C-code, IRAF/shell scripts, and IDL plotting code. I have switched over to python/pyraf/matplotlib entirely.

By: jon

jon — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 11:16:34 +0000

Worth a look as well: SmileLab, http://www.satimage.fr/software/en/smilelab/index.html

By: biw

biw — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 05:12:54 +0000

pglot with perl

By: j

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 19:54:07 +0000

something else entirely: python/matplotlib. idl is a proprietary programming language--far more insidious that mere commercial software is a commercial, closed source (expensive!) programming language that locks you in once code is written. furthermore, making beautiful plots is difficult (try putting in greek letters--!7d!3, etc etc). matplotlib can have all its text typeset in latex, allowing for beautiful and easy labels. furthermore, if you're like me, any figure will inevitably be screwed up so many times that editing it using a GUI by hand would take forever.

By: Andreas Berlind

Andreas Berlind — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 15:04:43 +0000

SM is very powerful and easy to use. The main things I like about it are: - very easy to script with it and embed SM scripts within shell scripts. So I run one script from the command line which typically runs some C code, produces data files, starts up SM, does some processing of the data, makes a plot, saves it to postscript, exits SM, and brings it up on the screen. - the ability to use LaTeX for all labels - it’s very easy to manipulate vectors and of course, - I know it well

By: Aaron

Aaron — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:43:01 +0000

I’m a recent convert to the plotting capabilities in ‘R’. The defaults are always good and in general I prefer the plots I get with a few lines compared to the IDL equivalents. It’s fully scriptable (though in all honesty I use Gnuplot when I need a program to churn them out), and installs easily on all systems. The Mac version is particularly nice, and quartz native. It’s a hassle to Google though…

By: Margaret

Margaret — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 18:24:19 +0000

I’m a big fan of Mathematica since it’s convenient to turn out a pretty plot from where I’m doing analysis in the first place. Also, it has lots of bells and whistles for making attractive figures, but looking at Grace, which seems to offer similar features, I might be convinced to give it a shot too.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 21:25:22 +0000

I use SM because it is scriptable, and that way I have an easily-recoverable record of how I made a particular plot. It makes it far easier to go back and fix the errors I invariably make for publication plots. And making lots of similar plots is simple, as Heng and Sammy say. I also like the output quality and use of latex labels.

Then again, I work in a field where QDP/PLT is still alive and kicking. We all have our weird quirks.