Re: Fwd: Re: Compilation problem / octave-2.0.16 / movie / mpeg question

[Roberto Hernandez]

SA wrote:
> Dear Octave Help,
>
> I have 2 questions-
>
> (2) Is there any movie / animation facility in octave?  If not has
> anyone made any attempt
> to do this or are there any alternatives--- Would a
> octave->gnuplot->framestore->imagemagik->mpeg movie
> approach be sensible  and could I code this via an octave mfile without
> delving into the octave source?
> Is there a way of sucking a bitmap back from a gnuplot window and
> displaying it from octave in a sensible
> way (ie could I use this to provide the equivalent of M(i)=getframe to
> build a movie?).

If you use PLplot (http://plplot.sourceforge.net) instead of GNUPlot 
there is an animation feature. Besides that there are quite a few other 
advantages, such as more plotting functions, added speed, etc.

> ps I have some general questions-- how active is octave development, of
> the free matlab interpreters is
> octave <active / likely to continue> or <inactive / likely to be
> upsurped by scilab or something else> ?

I wouldn't really think of Octave as a "free matlab interpreter". It is 
an independent numerical computation tool. Being mostly 
matlab-compatible is _ONE_ of its features. You might want to read 
"Octave: Past, Present and Future" 
(http://www.che.wisc.edu/jbr-group/tech-reports/twmcc-2001-03.pdf)

IMHO Octave is one of the best open-source numerical tools out there. As 
far as I can tell (and this involves no formal research) the three 
largest open-source numerical computation projects are: Octave, Scilab 
and TELA. Hammersmith-Consulting used to have a nice summary of the 
three, but unfortunately they closed down and that's no longer available 
online.

BTW, these are open-source projects with _VOLUNTEER_ developers, so I 
don't think the practice of "usurpation" is likely. That seems like 
something that would happen if Matlab were to pose a threat to Microsoft.

- Roberto



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