Re: Cannot draw figures in Mac OS X

[Michael Martin]

On Feb 17, 2004, at 10:11 PM, Joe Koski wrote:

> Finally, octave plots via a separate program called gnuplot. Just be 
> aware
> that octave is sending commands to a separate program, not generating 
> the
> plots directly within octave.

	Right. As an octave/gnuplot and a matlab user let me elaborate on this 
point a bit. The exact behavior of the two for plotting is quite 
different. Figure opens a new window immedeately under matlab, but not 
octave/gnuplot. Octave/gnuplot will not do anything until data is 
actually plotted. There are also differences in the plot commands 
themselves for things like axes etc. So if you are coming from a matlab 
background, there will be some getting used to plotting with 
octave/gnuplot.


On Feb 17, 2004, at 8:08 PM, Anil Hirani wrote:

> I have installed octave on Mac OS X 10.3.2, using Fink. No figures are 
> being

	Since you have used fink to install octave, I am a bit surprised you 
are having difficulty. I suspect it is because you are trying to use 
X11 and not the fink default for gnuplot, which is aquaterm, if I 
recall correctly. It has been some time since I setup my standard 
configuration, and I do not recall all the details of what was 
automatic and what was manual. I do know at one time I modified my 
start up shell script to add some environment variables.

	There are two environment variables that gnuplot will use to determine 
what graphics application it will use to actually draw the plots, 
GNUTERMAPP and GNUTERM. To use aquaterm,  
GNUTERMAPP=/Volumes/Applicationes/AQT/AquaTerm.app and GNUTERM=aqua 
need to be set by your shell. If you do not have these set, then the 
default will be X11.

	If you are going to use X11 to plot, then you need to start octave in 
an X11 window for gnuplot to properly identifiy where the output will 
go. Since you are running the fink version of octave, which uses Aqua 
by default and not X11 (at least mine does), I believe that you may 
need to do a "gset terminal X11' in octave first. This will tell 
gnuplot to use X11 and not Aqua.

	If all you are going to do are line graphs, then I suggest you use 
Aqua. It has less overhead than X11 and will allow saving of plots to 
pdf's, which I find quite a bit more cumbersome under X11. But as with 
all such things "de gustibus non disputandum est".


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Michael W. Martin                   Phone: (281) 333-2177
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