The scientific plots
The functionality of the scientific plots is of central importance to
the application. Graphs have always played an important role in
mathematics. Sometimes the accessibility of a theory depends heavily
on the availability of apropriate graphs. A scientific application
should not only produce graphs as an optional add-on but give them a
central position in the control structure.
In the
Statistical Data Viewer a plot can be loaded into the
editor by selecting it from the list box or by clicking on one of its
axes. It has the obvious attributes height, width, background color
and margin. No graphs are shown on the margin. It also has two
axis objects as attributes. The attributes of an
axis are color and visibility, location on the plot and the range. If
a plot has to show everything in the range 0--10 along the
x-axis,
this is the place to define it. For every axis a number of
scales can be chosen:
simple (which is normal),
logarithmic,
log-log,
exponential etc.
When moving the mouse over a plot, the location of the mouse along the
x and
y-axis is shown in a small box at the bottom of the main
window. This is very helpful when analysing a graph. Hovering over a
graph in the plot will show its name. Clicking on it with the left
mouse button will load it into the editor. Clicking on a plot with
the middle mouse button will zoom into the section around
the mouse. Moving the mouse while pressing the middle button will move
the area that is zoomed into. Releasing the middle mouse button will
let the zoom disappear.
The behaviour of the right mouse button depends on which object is
currently loaded into the editor. If it is the plot itself, clicking
on the right button and then moving the mouse over a section of the
plot will create a rectangle between the mouse and the point where the
button was pressed first. If the mouse is not on the plot anymore when
the button is released, nothing happens. But if it is, the section
that is within the rectangle is defined as the new range of the
axes. In this way portions of the plot that are of particular interest
can be magnified again and again. To go back to
the old range of the axes the editor has to be used. Clicking on one
of the axes will load the plot into the editor.
A plot is saved by selecting the
save plot option from the main
menu. The application saves all plots in the PNG format. Use
the
convert program on Linux/Unix or your favourite image
processor to convert it to another format.