A note on graphics



Sheldon,


> What ever is done to improve plotting, I hope some of the
> functionality of gnuplot is not removed.  For instance, the ability to
> export to xfig, png, and many other formats.  Also, since gnuplot gets
> better and better, it would be nice to have access to all of the
> features of gnuplot from maxima.

gpdraw acts as a filter and some (many) gnuplot features are lost. We
could define a new option (let's call it 'user_preamble') where
gnuplot-experts could write additional settings to be sent to gnuplot,
just before the 'plot' or 'splot' command.


>    For instance, using gnuplot interactively, one can save the
>    coordinates of mouse-clicked points on the screen (in a 2d plot) to a file.  As far
>    as I can tell, one can't do that in maxima at this time.

Now you can with gpdraw. I've uploaded a new version (I call it version
3):
http://www.telefonica.net/web2/biomates/maxima/gpdraw


If you write

gpdraw2d(xy_file="my_coord_file",explicit(u^2,u,-3,3))$

you can clic on any point with the mouse button, afterwards if you hit
the 'x'  key, the coordinates will be sent to "my_coord_file", as many
times as you clic+hit x.

Hope this helps.

Mario.

-- 
Mario Rodriguez Riotorto
www.biomates.net