1GRAPHICS(1)           User Contributed Perl Documentation          GRAPHICS(1)
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NAME

6       PDL::Graphics - Introduction to the PDL::Graphics modules
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DESCRIPTION

9       PDL has full-featured plotting abilities. Unlike MATLAB, PDL relies
10       more on third-party libraries  for its plotting features: Prima,
11       Gnuplot, OpenGL, PLplot and PGplot. PDL has several plotting modules
12       that you can choose from, each of them with their particular strength
13       and weaknesses. In this page, you will find a short review of each of
14       the main PDL::Graphics::* modules.
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GRAPHIC MODULES REVIEWS

17   The newest generation of PDL::Graphics modules
18       PDL::Graphics::Simple
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20       Best for: backend-independent output: you get the same plots, whichever
21       of the graphical module you manage to install.
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23       A unified backend-independent plotting interface for PDL. It implements
24       all the functionality used in the PDL::Book examples, and it will
25       probably be the easiest PDL::Graphics module for you to install, as it
26       relies on any of the other ones.  Because it is backend-independent,
27       the plot you get will always be what you asked for, regardless of which
28       plotting engine you have installed on your system.
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30       Only a small subset of PDL's complete graphics functionality is
31       supported -- each individual plotting module has unique advantages and
32       functionality that are beyond what PDL::Graphics::Simple can do.
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34       PDL::Graphics::Gnuplot
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36       Best for: publication-quality 2D and 3D plots
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38       Gnuplot is widely used and produces publication-quality plots. It is
39       also interactive: you can pan, scale, and rotate both 2-D and 3-D
40       plots. And its API is powerful, simple and intuitive.
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42       A video tutorial <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUXDQL3rZ_0> is
43       available.
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45       Notice: you must install gnuplot on your computer first.
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47       PDL::Graphics::Prima
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49       Best for: Integration of your plots into your application GUI.
50       Possibility to create a dedicated GUI to let your application users
51       interact with the plotted data.
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53       Lets you focus on what you want to visualize rather than the details of
54       how you would draw it. Its killer feature is that it belongs to the the
55       Prima GUI environment (an alternative to Tk, Gtk, Wx, etc). Prima
56       provides an array of useful interactive widgets and a simple but
57       powerful event-based programming model. These tools allow you to build
58       interactive data visualization and analysis applications with
59       sophisticated plotting and intuitive user interaction in only a few
60       hundred lines of code. Or more simply, to include a plot into an
61       application.
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63       For this reason, PDL::Graphics::Prima's API is more complex than
64       PDL::Graphics::Gnuplot's. It is advised to start with
65       PDL::Graphics::Prima::Simple, which focuses on the plotting functions
66       and does not mess with Widgets. A tutorial is available here:
67       http://search.cpan.org/~chm/PDL-2.006/Demos/Prima.pm As well as a video
68       tutorial <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WILd2XTz3F4>.
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70       PDL::Graphics::TriD
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72       Best for: Plotting heavy 3D images, fast.
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74       The native PDL 3D graphics library using OpenGL as a backend for 3D
75       plots and data visualization. With OpenGL, it is easy to manipulate the
76       resulting 3D objects with the mouse in real time.
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78       OpenGL makes PDL::Graphics::TriD a lot faster than Gnuplot to
79       manipulate 3D images. But Gnuplot's output is publication quality, and
80       Gnuplot is in general easier to manipulate. If you manipulate heavy
81       images, PDL::Graphics::TriD might be the thing for you.
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83   Good old PDL::Graphics modules
84       Still well maintained, documented, and widely used.
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86       PDL::Graphics::PLplot
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88       Best for: Plotting 2D functions as well as 2D and 3D data sets.
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90       This is an interface to the PLplot plotting library. PLplot is a
91       modern, open source library for making scientific plots. It supports
92       plots of both 2D and 3D data sets. PLplot is best supported for
93       unix/linux/macosx platforms. It has an active developers community and
94       support for win32 platforms is improving.
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96       PDL::Graphics::PGPLOT
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98       Best for: Plotting 2D functions. More widely used in the scientific
99       community
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101       This is an interface to the venerable PGPLOT library. PGPLOT has been
102       widely used in the academic and scientific communities for many years.
103       In part because of its age, PGPLOT has some limitations compared to
104       newer packages such as PLplot (e.g. no RGB graphics). But it has many
105       features that still make it popular in the scientific community.
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SEE ALSO

108       PDL::Graphics::Simple
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110       PDL::Graphics::Gnuplot
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112       PDL::Graphics::Prima
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114       PDL::Graphics::TriD
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116       PDL::Graphics::PGPLOT
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118       PDL::Graphics::PLplot
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AUTHOR

121       Pierre Masci, 2013
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125perl v5.38.0                      2023-07-21                       GRAPHICS(1)
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