Revision as of 23:57, 26 September 2017

Introduction

Gnuplot is a command-line driven graphing utility that is copyrighted but freely distributed. Designed for efficient and interactive visualization of mathematical functions and data. It has the capacity for generating publication quality figures of 2 or 3 dimensions composed of lines, points, boxes, contours, vector fields, surfaces and texts.

Version Selection

Gnuplot is installed on most SHARCNET systems as part of the operating systems default software stack for instance /usr/bin/gnuplot. A more recent version can be accessed on certain systems shown in the Availability Table (Gnuplot portal page] by loading the sharcnet module as follows:

module load gnuplot/4.4.3

Example plots

Set up

The following examples can be run on SHARCNet system development nodes. For instance, in order to run these examples on an Orca development node the following steps should be followed:

• Login to the system enabling X11 forwarding with the -Y option to ssh:

bucanl-jad@bucanl-bonx8:~$ ssh -Y jdesjard@orca.sharcnet.ca

Welcome to the SHARCNET cluster Orca.

Please see the following URLs for status of this and other clusters:
https://www.sharcnet.ca/help/index.php/Orca
https://www.sharcnet.ca/my/systems

*****

• Then login to a development node using the -Y option to ssh again:

[jdesjard@orc-login1:~] ssh -Y orc-dev1
Last login: Fri Dec  4 10:05:53 2015 from orc-login2.orca.sharcnet

Welcome to the SHARCNET cluster Orca.

Please see the following URLs for status of this and other clusters:
https://www.sharcnet.ca/help/index.php/Orca
https://www.sharcnet.ca/my/systems

*****

• Next load the GNUPlot module:

module load gnuplot/4.4.3

• Then launch the program:

[jdesjard@orc129:~] gnuplot

	G N U P L O T
	Version 4.4 patchlevel 3
	last modified March 2011
	System: Linux 2.6.32-358.18.1.el6.x86_64

	Copyright (C) 1986-1993, 1998, 2004, 2007-2010
	Thomas Williams, Colin Kelley and many others

	gnuplot home:     http://www.gnuplot.info
	faq, bugs, etc:   type "help seeking-assistance"
	immediate help:   type "help"
	plot window:      hit 'h'

Terminal type set to 'x11'
gnuplot>

Once that "gnuplot>" prompt is in the terminal (that is set to 'X11') the following examples can be pasted to generate the example figures.

Example 1: multiple axis scaling

[jdesjard@bul128:~]  cat /home/jdesjard/gnuplot/example1.in
#
# $Id: multiaxis.dem,v 1.1 2007/06/09 22:10:45 sfeam Exp $
#

# Use the 3rd plot of the electronics demo to show off
# the use of multiple x and y axes in the same plot.
# 
A(jw) = ({0,1}*jw/({0,1}*jw+p1)) * (1/(1+{0,1}*jw/p2))
p1 = 10
p2 = 10000
set dummy jw
set grid x y2
set key center top title " "
set logscale xy
set log x2
unset log y2
set title "Transistor Amplitude and Phase Frequency Response"
set xlabel "jw (radians)"
set xrange [1.1 : 90000.0]
set x2range [1.1 : 90000.0]
set ylabel "magnitude of A(jw)"
set y2label "Phase of A(jw) (degrees)"
set ytics nomirror
set y2tics
set tics out
set autoscale  y
set autoscale y2
plot abs(A(jw)) axes x1y1, 180./pi*arg(A(jw)) axes x2y2
[jdesjard@bul128:~] 

Call the script in gnuplot to generate the figure as follows:

Figure produced on orc-dev# with commands from "multiple axis scales" at [gnuplot examples]

gnuplot> call "/home/jdesjard/gnuplot/example1.in"
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Example 2: 3D surface

[jdesjard@bul128:~]  cat /home/jdesjard/gnuplot/example2.in
#
# $Id: surface1.dem,v 1.11 2004/09/17 05:01:12 sfeam Exp $
#
set samples 21
set isosample 11
set xlabel "X axis" offset -3,-2
set ylabel "Y axis" offset 3,-2
set zlabel "Z axis" offset -5
set title "3D gnuplot demo"
set label 1 "This is the surface boundary" at -10,-5,150 center
set arrow 1 from -10,-5,120 to -10,0,0 nohead
set arrow 2 from -10,-5,120 to 10,0,0 nohead
set arrow 3 from -10,-5,120 to 0,10,0 nohead
set arrow 4 from -10,-5,120 to 0,-10,0 nohead
set xrange [-10:10]
set yrange [-10:10]
splot x*y
[jdesjard@bul128:~] 

Call the script in gnuplot to generate the figure as follows:

Figure produced on orc-dev# with commands from "surfaces 1" at [gnuplot examples]

gnuplot> call "/home/jdesjard/gnuplot/example2.in"
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Example 3: 3D hidden surfaces

[jdesjard@bul128:~] cat /home/jdesjard/gnuplot/example3.in
#
# Another example of pm3d hidden surface removal,
# this time using pm3d depth-ordering
#
set multiplot title "Interlocking Tori"
set title "PM3D surface\nno depth sorting"

set parametric
set urange [-pi:pi]
set vrange [-pi:pi]
set isosamples 50,20

set origin -0.02,0.0
set size 0.55, 0.9

unset key
unset xtics
unset ytics
unset ztics
set border 0
set view 60, 30, 1.5, 0.9
unset colorbox

set pm3d scansbackward
splot cos(u)+.5*cos(u)*cos(v),sin(u)+.5*sin(u)*cos(v),.5*sin(v) with pm3d, \
      1+cos(u)+.5*cos(u)*cos(v),.5*sin(v),sin(u)+.5*sin(u)*cos(v) with pm3d

set title "PM3D surface\ndepth sorting"

set origin 0.40,0.0
set size 0.55, 0.9
set colorbox vertical user origin 0.9, 0.15 size 0.02, 0.50
set format cb "%.1f"

set pm3d depthorder
splot cos(u)+.5*cos(u)*cos(v),sin(u)+.5*sin(u)*cos(v),.5*sin(v) with pm3d, \
      1+cos(u)+.5*cos(u)*cos(v),.5*sin(v),sin(u)+.5*sin(u)*cos(v) with pm3d

unset multiplot
[jdesjard@bul128:~] 

Call the script in gnuplot to generate the figure as follows:

Figure produced on orc-dev# with commands from "pm3d hidden surfaces" at [gnuplot examples]

gnuplot> call "/home/jdesjard/gnuplot/example3.in"
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

General Notes

Visualization systems

For information regarding graphics resources follow the links from the Visualization page.

References

o Online Documentation
http://www.gnuplot.info/documentation.html

o A brief gnuplot tutorial by Henri Gavin
http://people.duke.edu/~hpgavin/gnuplot.html

o Demo Scripts for gnuplot version 5
http://www.gnuplot.info/demo/