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RSPLOT.MAN
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1989-05-08
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RSPLOT V1.1 User's Guide
Copyright (c) 1988, By Bob Silliker
All Rights Reserved
THIS SOFTWARE IS FREEWARE AND IS NOT
TO BE SOLD IN ANY FORM
V1.1 RSPLOT User's Guide 1
1.0 Introduction
Rsplot is a general purpose data plotting program that will work in both
MEDIUM and HI resolution modes on the ST series of computers. The
program takes white space separated columns of data stored in ascii files
and plots it under user control. The user selects which columns of data
to plot and has complete control over the axis scales, marking and
labelling. Plots generated in one resolution can be viewed in the other
resolution.
The program provides for independant Linear or Log10 axis scaling for
each axis. Linear scaling can be 1, 2 or 4 quadrants and Log10 scaling
is 1 quadrant.
The program was written primarily for use with output files from the OPUS
spreadsheet program that was published in the September 1988 issue of the
ST Log magazine (I have no connection with ST Log magazine except that I
purchased a few magazines). However, it can be used with any data file
that has columns of numerical ascii data.
This manual was generated using PROFF V1.0 by Ozan S. Yigit & Steven
Tress.
V1.1 RSPLOT User's Guide 2
2.0 About the program
Version 1.1 has a fix made to the parsing of the command line to be
compatible with Mark Williams Shell.
Version 1.0 is the first distribution of RSPLOT. There are no known bugs
at this time.
2.1 Applications
The program supports 10 graphs per application (an application being
one RSPLOT configuration file). Each graph can contain up to 10
plots with each plot having it's own set of attributes (lines, bars,
markers etc). It is possible to mix the types of plots on each
graph. The plot types are lines, lines with markers, markers, group
bars, stacked bars and overlayed bars.
The RSPLOT configuration file has the extension .PLT and when
creating or renaming applications the program will force the
extension, ignoring anything you put in.
2.2 Axis
Each graph has one X axis and two Y (a left and a right). Each plot
is associated with a Y axis. This makes is possible to view two sets
of data that have a common X axis but vary widely in Y values or have
different units of measure (such as current and temperature).
Each axis can optionally have an axis line, axis numbering, tic
marks, grid lines and a label. Each axis can also have either a
linear scale or a log10 scale.
2.3 User Lines
Each graph has 4 user defined lines associated with each axis. Each
line is given an axis position and a string of text that will be
printed on the line. The X axis lines are vertical and the Y axis
lines are horizontal. The labels for the X lines are display
centered at the top of the line. The labels for the left Y axis
lines are displayed over the line on the left of the screen and the
labels for the right Y axis lines are displyed over the line on the
right of the screen.
2.4 Data Files
The user can set up 10 data files per application. Each file can
contain upto 65530 lines of data. Each line can be a maximum of 640
characters or 64 columns. Anything after either of these two limits
will be ignored. A line is defined by anything upto and including
V1.1 RSPLOT User's Guide 3
the newline character (0x0A). Anything after the newline character
is part of the next line. The program will ignore any non-printable
ascii characters and lines that do not contain any numbers. When
setting up a plot you select the two columns (1 based) that will be
used for X and Y values. If the X column is 0 then the program will
generate it's own X values. These values start at X value 1 for the
first Y value and increment by the X value by Y for each Y value.
This makes it possible to view a single column of data.
2.5 Data Filtering
For each plot there are X and Y minimum and maximum setpoint values.
Initially these values are set to nothing and the filter is
disabled. When legal values are set up and the filter is enabled the
program will check each X and Y value against the appropriate filter
values and will plot points that fall within the setpoints inclusive
(that means if the X setpoints are 10 to 100 and the Y setpoints are
0 to 1 then points will be plotted where X >= 10 and X <= 100 and Y
>= 0 and Y <= 1).
2.6 Rotating Data
A new feature to the program has been added that allows rotating the
data loaded from the data file such that rows and columns are
swapped. This provides a means of viewing data by rows. When
viewing a data, in the data window, that has been rotated the file
rows are now data columns and file columns are now data rows. The
number of rows and columns that can be rotated this way is limited to
64 of either and the program will limit this when loading the data
file.
If you have a data file that has more that 64 rows or columns that
you want rotated then you will have to write a conversion utility to
rotate the data before using it with RSPLOT.
2.7 Memory Usage
All data for a data file is memory resident and are stored as doubles
(that's eight bytes per value). If you have alot of large data files
you may run into memory problems. There are not many solutions to
this problem at this time. One solution is to try to keeping the
organization of the data files such that there are no unused
columns. You can also try the usual 'remove' all desk accessories'
trick. The only other solution is to break the data file into parts
and create a separate configuration file for each data file (YUK!).
2.8 Hard Copy
The program currently will output graphs into DEGAS compatible files
V1.1 RSPLOT User's Guide 4
or print graphs onto EPSON compatible printers. The driver used to
make hardcopies is the same driver that the ALT-HELP sequence uses.
So if you can do screen dumps with ALT-HELP then you can use the
Hardcopy menu entry to print graphs. If you have access to DEGAS you
can use the DEGAS printer drivers or you can design your own by
obtaining a copy of the DEGAS printer driver tool kit that Tom Hudson
wrote and which appeared in START magazine Spring 1987 Volume 1
number 4 (I have no connection with either Tom Hudson or START
magazine, except that I am a, somewhat, satisfied customer).
3.0 Usage
rsplot.ttp [graph-configuration-file-path]
As the command line indicates the program takes an opti