Plotutils

Infobox Software
name = Plotutils
developer = GNU Project
latest_release_version = 2.5
latest_release_date = December 2005
operating_system = Multi-platform
license = GNU General Public License
website = [http://gnu.org/software/plotutils Official website]

Plotutils is a software library for exporting 2D vector graphics in many file formats. It is maintained by the GNU Project and is licensed under the GPL. It is used in projects such as PSPP. The library provides bindings for the C and C++ languages. It also provides stand alone tools for generating graphs.

Features

upported output formats

* X Window System display
* SVG
* PNG
* PNM
* pseudo-GIF
* WebCGM
* Adobe Illustrator
* PostScript
* PCL
* HP-GL
* xfig

tand alone tools

* GNU graph, which plots 2-D datasets or data streams in real time.
* GNU plot, which translates GNU Metafile format to any of the other formats.
* GNU tek2plot, for translating Tektronix data to any of the above formats.
* GNU pic2plot, for translating the pic language to any of the above formats.
* GNU plotfont, for displaying character maps of the fonts that are available in the above formats.
* GNU spline, which does spline interpolation of data.
* GNU ode, which numerically integrates a system consisting of one or more ordinary differential equations.

History

Several utilities were inspired by Unix plotting utilities. A graph utility and various plot filters were present in thefirst releases of Unix from Bell Laboratories. By the time of Version 7 Unix, `graph', `plot', `spline', and several device-dependent versions of `libplot' were a standard Unix features. The first display device supported by the package was a Tektronix 611 storage scope. By the early 1980's, numerous other devices were supported.

In 1989, the first GNU versions of `graph', `plot', `tek2plot', `spline' and their respective documentation were written.
Richard Stallman further directed development of the programs and documentation.The distribution, as it stood in 1991, was distributed under the name `GNU graphics'.

In 1995 the package was significantly expanded by writing a device-independent, standalone version of `libplot', and by rewriting `graph' from scratch, turning it into a real-time filter.

See also

* GNU Project
* GNUplot (not part of the GNU project).

External links

* [http://gnu.org/software/plotutils Official website]