From: dfs@lestat.bellcore.com (Deborah Swayne)
Newsgroups: fj.mail-lists.x-window
Subject: Re: WANTED: good plotting/graphics utility for X
Date: 14 Apr 92 01:43:54 GMT
Distribution: fj
Organization: Morristown Research and Engineering

Date: 13 Apr 92 15:10:28 GMT
Message-Id: <1992Apr13.111028@lestat.bellcore.com>
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x

Let me point you to XGobi, an interactive dynamic scatter plotting
tool developed at Bellcore; I don't think it's been announced in
this newsgroup for quite a while.  It doesn't do all of the things 
you ask for, but you might find it useful.  It's available from the
statlib statistical software server at Carnegie Mellon University.

__________________________________________________________________

The next version of XGobi is now available from statlib.  New
functionality includes

  * textured dot plots
  * cycling of textured dot plots
  * line editing and brushing, allowing any arbitrary pair of
    points to be connected with a line and that line to be
    color-brushed.  (No brushing of line types yet; sorry.)
  * printing the plot window
  * the ability to delete and restore erased points

A new user's manual is included -- the full version, containing
a few figures, is only available by ftp; the email version has
had the figures removed so that its size is manageable.

To have the new version of XGobi sent to you by electronic mail,
send email to statlib@temper.stat.cmu.edu saying "send xgobi from
general." To pick it up using ftp, connect to lib.stat.cmu.edu, log
in giving statlib as your name and your email address as your
password, then type

 cd general
 mget xgobi.*

For those who aren't familiar with XGobi, it is a dynamic graphics
program for exploratory data analysis being developed at Bellcore.

XGobi runs under the X Window System, using the Athena widget set,
and has been tested on various color and monochrome UNIX
workstations.  It can be initiated from the UNIX shell, reading and
writing ascii files, or from within S, in which case it accepts an
S matrix as an argument and writes in S data format.
XGobi functionality includes

  *  two-variable scatter plots
  *  three-variable rotation around a fixed vertical axis, with the
     ability to save rotation coefficients
  *  grand tour
  *  projection pursuit guided tour
  *  scaling and translation of the projection of the data in the
     plot region
  *  color and glyph brushing, of a single window or two or more
     linked windows, with the ability to save vectors of color or
     glyph information about each point
  *  case identification by label or row number, for a single window
     or linked windows
  *  reading in a new matrix of data
  *  the ability to do some variable transformations interactively
  *  an on-line help facility
  *  variable grouping for scaling

Please tell us about your experience with XGobi.  We know that lots of
people pick it up from the statlib server, and we rarely hear anything
after that.  Do you find XGobi easy or difficult to learn to use?  Has
it been useful to you?  Have improvements or additions occurred to you?
Bug reports are also gratefully accepted.

 Deborah F. Swayne            Dianne Cook           Andreas Buja
  dfs@bellcore.com      dcook@stat.rutgers.edu   andreas@bellcore.com
   (201) 829-4263


 ************************************************************
 *  Permission is hereby granted  to  any  individual   or  *
 *  institution   for  use,  copying, or redistribution of  *
 *  the xgobi code and associated documentation,  provided  *
 *  that   such  code  and documentation are not sold  for  *
 *  profit and the  following copyright notice is retained  *
 *  in the code and documentation:                          *
 *              Copyright (c) 1990,1991,1992 Bellcore       *
 ************************************************************

* Note:  Problems with statlib should be directed to
  mikem@andrew.cmu.edu.