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Maxima can use either Gnuplot, Xmaxima or Geomview as graphics
program. Gnuplot and Geomview are external programs which must be
installed separately, while Xmaxima is distributed with Maxima. To see
which plotting format you are currently using, use the command
get_plot_option(plot_format);
and to change to another format,
you can use set_plot_option([plot_format, <format>])
, where
<format>
is the name of one of the formats described below. Those
two commands show and change the global plot format, while each
individual plotting command can use its own format, if it includes an
option [plot_format, <format>]
(see get_plot_option
and
set_plot_option
).
The plotting formats are the following:
Used to launch the external program gnuplot, which must be installed in
your system. All plotting commands and data are saved into the file
maxout_xxx.gnuplot
.
It is similar to the gnuplot
format except that the commands and
plot data are sent directly to gnuplot
without creating any
files. A single gnuplot process is kept open, with a single graphic
window, and subsequent plot commands will be sent to the same process,
replacing previous plots in that same window. Even if the graphic window
is closed, the gnuplot
process is still running until the end of
the session or until it is killed with gnuplot_close
.. The
function gnuplot_replot
can be used to modify a plot that has
already been displayed on the screen or to open again the graphic window
after it was closed.
This format does not work with some versions of Lisp under Windows and
it is only used to plot to the screen; whenever graphic files are to be
created, the format is silently switched to gnuplot
and the
commands needed to create the graphic file are saved with the data in
file maxout_xxx.gnuplot
.
Mgnuplot is a Tk-based wrapper around gnuplot. It is an old interface still included in the Maxima distribution, but it is currently disabled because it does not have most of the features introduced by the newer versions of the plotting commands. Mgnuplot requires an external gnuplot installation and, in Unix systems, the Tcl/Tk system.
Xmaxima is a Tcl/Tk graphical interface for Maxima that can also be used
to display plots created when Maxima is run from the console or from
other graphical interfaces. To use this format, the xmaxima program,
which is distributed together with Maxima, must be installed; in some
Linux distributions Xmaxima is distributed in a package separate from
other parts of Maxima. If Maxima is being run from the Xmaxima console,
the data and commands are passed to xmaxima through the same socket used
for the communication between Maxima and the Xmaxima console. When used
from a terminal or from graphical interfaces different from Xmaxima, the
commands and data are saved in the file maxout_xxx.xmaxima
and
xmaxima is run with the name of that file as argument.
Geomview, a Motif based interactive 3D viewing program for Unix. It can
only be used to display plots created with plot3d
. To use this
format, the geomview program must be installed.
Next: Functions and Variables for Plotting, Previous: Introduction to Plotting, Up: Plotting [Contents][Index]