Re: Tables and graphs

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

At 07:52 AM 12/23/00 +0100, Johannes H?sing wrote:
>On Fri, Dec 22, 2000 at 06:26:09PM +0100, Wouter Verheijen wrote:
>> Hi,
>
>Ahoj,
>
>> I plan to do a essay about physics with Context. The essay will
>> contain a couple of tables. Most of them will be accompanied by a
>> graph, displaying the same data, compared with a theoretical curve.
>> 
>> - Which program is best suited for this? My first thought is gnuplot.
>>   But that will generate (e.g.) .ps-output, thus I cannot edit the
>>   graph later. Is there a solution?

Well, it depends on what you want to edit. A few days ago i made some mp
macros that can change colors and line widths and remap colors of a picture
as for instance produced by pstoedit. This is what i will use for cleaning
up graphics and making them more consistent.  

>The output of gnuplot depends on the argument to 'set terminal'. Type
>"help set terminal" at the gnuplot prompt. You can use 'mp' as the
>terminal but Metapost at its generic format is limited -- it won't
>handle thousands of points in a scatterplot without being enlarged by
>a wizard.

A few thousand point is not so much a problem. 

>> - Is it possible to share the measured data between the table and the
>>   graph? Maybe Context can read the table as plaintext and insert the
>>   \VL, \FR, \MR etc. automatically?
>
>I'd say you'll have to write a Perl script or whichever scripting
>language suits you best and handle the stuff with makefiles if it
>becomes hairy.

Indeed a typical perl job. Depending on the data, you can use context using
\doprocessfile cum suis, or even mp to do it for you [using mp directly may
be an option], but perl is more sobust in this respect. 

Hans
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