Simtel MSDOS 1992 June

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CGPLT COLOR GRAPHICS PLOTTER VERSION 3.00 USER's GUIDE Steven Murphy 4784 Bermuda Ave #H San Diego, CA 92107 - 3862 UPDATE INFORMATION Version 3.00 has many improvements over the 2.XX versions. Most notably is the addition of Bar Graphs. The speed at which it runs has also been increased and two more point indicators have been added. As for input files and saved screen plot there are no incompatibilities between older versions and version 3.00. Things for the future (if there is enough interest) include: log scales and hopefully a printer driver. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS User Supported Software ............................... iv System Requirements ................................... 1 Backing up CGPLT ....................................... 1 Getting Started ....................................... 1 Hard Copies ........................................... 2 F1 ................................................... 2 Alt - A ............................................... 2 Alt - C ............................................... 2 Alt - E ............................................... 2 Zooming ............................................... 3 Limitations of CGPLT ................................... 3 Some General Hints .................................... 4 Let's do an Example ................................... 5 One Catch ............................................ 7 Disclaimer ............................................. 8 Copy Permission ........................................ 8 Update Info ............................................ 8 iii User-Supported Software You're encouraged to copy and share this diskette with others. If after evaluating this program you find it to be useful, a $5.00 -> $10.00 donation to: S. Murphy 4784 Bermuda Ave. #H San Diego, CA 92107 - 3862 would be a nice gesture. User-supported software is an experiment in distributing computer programs, based on these beliefs: I. That the value and utility of software is best assessed by the user on his/her own system. II. That the creation of personal computer software can and should be supported by the computing community. III. That the copying of programs should be encouraged, rather than restricted. Anyone may legally obtain an evaluation copy of the program from a friend or computer club. After you've had a chance to use and evaluate the program in your own environment, you're trusted to either forward a payment to the author, or to discontinue use of the program. In either case, you are encouraged to let others copy the program for evaluation. Free distribution of software and voluntary payment for its use, eliminates costs for advertising and copy protection schemes. Users obtain quality software at greatly reduced cost. They can try it out before buying, and do so at their own pace and in the comfort of their own home or office. Naturally the best programs will survive, based purely on their quality and usefulness. iv CGPLT Version 3.00 Copyright 1987 S. Murphy 1 CGPLT (Color Graphics Plotter) REQUIREMENTS This program requires 256k an a color graphics adapter. It was written on an IBM compatible. BACKUP As with all software you should make a backup copy of it for actual use and tuck the original away for safe keeping. My suggestion for getting the most out of this program is to create a disk with system on it (you can use the FORMAT /S command or the SYS command). Then copy GRAPHICS.COM from your DOS disk to the disk you just put system on. Now copy CGPLT.EXE to disk (to do the examples copy CGPLT?.* and you will have all the files). GETTING STARTED The next step is to create some data for plotting. This program was originally written to display the solution to computer simulations. This is what is meant by have a program generate the data file in method A. Plotting is also used for a host of other things so method B is given as a quick and easy way of entering data points. The two methods are described as follows : A] Have the program that is going to generate the data points OPEN a sequential output file. Then have the program write the X,Y points, with one set to a line, to the file separating X & Y with either a comma or several spaces. B] Type " copy con: [d:][path] {filename.ext} <CR> ", you should now be on a blank line. Enter your data points one set to a line, X Y, separating them with a comma or blank spaces followed by a <CR> (NOTE: Do Not use the <Tab> key to insert the spaces). When they are all entered and you are on the blank line just below your last point hold down the <Ctrl> key and type " Z ". You should see " ^Z ". Now type " <CR> ". The computer should respond with " 1 File copied " followed by the DOS prompt. CGPLT Version 3.00 Copyright 1987 S. Murphy 2 HARD COPIES Now before you actually plot you should decide if you want a hard copy or not. If you would like a hardcopy of the plot turn on your printer and type GRAPHICS at the dos prompt, then hit <CR>. This will allow you to do a screen dump by hitting SHIFT- PRTSC after the plot is made. If you just want to view the plot or to save the screen image for future recall you don't have to bother with GRAPHICS. Now your ready to start CGPLT. At the DOS prompt type CGPLT and hit <CR> and you will see my opening message about User-Supported Software. After you're done reading it just hit the space bar to continue. The program will now ask you a series of questions about how you want things plotted. Once the plot is on the screen the following keys apply: F1 F1 brings up a help screen that list the keys that are active and gives you a reminder as to what the numbers mean when you are choosing options for plotting a file. Alt - A If you decide you would like to change some thing in a plot you just made type " <Alt>-<A>" this will put you back at the Choose Data menu of the program so you can select a different set of files to be plotted. Alt - C To change one or more of the files you are plotting or the attributes they are plotted with use " <Alt>-<C> ". This puts you in the Change Data menu which will let you change files, replace files, or add files if you have less than five read in at the moment. Alt - E If you would like to quit type " <Alt>-<E> " for Exit and you should be back at the DOS prompt. ZOOMING CGPLT Version 3.00 Copyright 1987 S. Murphy 3 The ability to input the axes limits allows the user to zoom in or out on any given plot. Example: if after making a plot you decide that only a certain part of the graph is what you are truly interested in, look at the axes and determine the values that the important part falls within. Now type Alt-A (for Again) and select the same files you did last time only this time when the prompt comes up for autoscale or user input limits, select user input limits and enter the limits of interest. The plotting time will be the same as before because CGPLT always plots all the points (it clips what every falls out side the plotting window) but now you will only see the part you were interested in. LIMITATIONS Some notes on the limits of CGPLT. 1) CGPLT can plot up to 5 curves (bar or line or a mix of both) on a single graph. 2) It will only read up to the first 500 points out of each data file. 3) It will save created plots to disk in binary form for faster recall. 4) The Y axis can be inverted but not the X axis. 5) If you try to temporarily SHELL to DOS and CGPLT can not find COMMAND.COM you will get ERROR 05 and the program will terminate. CGPLT Version 3.00 Copyright 1987 S. Murphy 4 SOME GENERAL HINTS If you know you are going to have a file longer than 500 points make your program write it into several files that are no more than 500 points long. This way you can plot all the pieces on a single graph and have your continuous curve up to 2,500 points long. If you already have a file longer than 500 points you can always use an editor to cut it into 500 point chunks for plotting. One point to consider is that the region for the graph is approximately 519 pixels across so unless your curve does a lot of vertical traveling you gain very little additional accuracy for a lot more work by going over 500 points per curve. Bar graphs are even more limited than line plots. In my testing of CGPLT it was found that if you go much over 30 bars per graph it is hard to distinguish the boundaries of any given bar because they become too closely packed. CGPLT Version 3.00 Copyright 1987 S. Murphy 5 LET'S DO AN EXAMPLE Included with CGPLT.EXE and CGPLT.DOC are CGPLT.DAT and CGPLT2.DAT. These two files are used in the following example: dos prompt> CGPLT <CR> my opening statement SPACEBAR what keys are used by CGPLT SPACEBAR option menu 1 <CR> color graphics plotting routine CGPLT.DAT <CR> 1<CR> 0<CR> <CR> reading points how many files to include in this plot 1<CR> file number 1<CR> axis scaling 2<CR> y-axis label Y | AXIS <CR> x-axis label X - AXIS <CR> title label CGPLT EXAMPLE <CR> graph appears CGPLT Version 3.00 Copyright 1987 S. Murphy 6 ALT-C which to change/replace 2<CR> CGPLT2.DAT<CR> 4<CR> 0<CR> reading points change/replace another N<CR> how many files to include in this plot 1<CR> file number 2<CR> axis scaling 2<CR> y-axis label Y | AXIS <CR> x-axis label X - AXIS <CR> title label CGPLT EXAMPLE 2 <CR> graph appears ALT-E you are now back at the dos prompt CGPLT Version 3.00 Copyright 1987 S. Murphy 7 ONE CATCH I have done my best to test this program for bugs and have not found any so far. This of course does not mean that no one else will. In testing it with a lot of odd cases I have found one catch. The catch goes like this : If your data has a large offset in the points CGPLT may round off your tic mark values. What is meant by a large offset is when N >> delta N. Which is shown in the following example : X Y -------- --------- 1 100000.4 2 100000.3 3 100000.2 4 100000.1 In the above data points X is of the same order of magnitude as delta X but, Y is 6 orders of magnitude greater than delta Y. So when CGPLT numbered the tics it would round off the last digit where the change is occurring. One solution to this problem is subtract a constant from your data. Which for my example means you should plot: X Y -------- --------- 1 0.4 2 0.3 Y-axis + 100000.0 3 0.2 4 0.1 Now delta Y is also of the same order as Y. To show the correction that was made only requires making a small note on the appropriate axis to add the constant to the displayed values. This catch can occur on either or both of the axes depending on your data. In general though most users will probably never encounter this quirk. CGPLT Version 3.00 Copyright 1987 S. Murphy 8 DISCLAIMER Users of CGPLT do so at their own risk. The author is not responsible for the users use, misuse, or abuse of CGPLT. Users are entirely responsible for the loss or damage of any kind caused by CGPLT. COPY PERMISSION Individuals and Computer clubs (non-profit) are granted permission by the author to copy the CGPLT diskette for their own use or for others to evaluate, so long as no price or other consideration is charged besides a handling and disk charge of no more than $6.00. The program and/or documentation may not be modified in any way and are to be distributed together. If you find any bugs or have any suggestions or criticisms please feel free to write me at : S. Murphy 4784 Bermuda Ave #H San Diego, CA 92107 - 3862 UPDATE INFO For those who contribute $10.00 or more and send a 5 1/4" disk with a self addressed stamped envelope I will send them an update or if they request a copy with out the opening screen and the key def screen suppressed if they wish. I only ask that the copies with the opening screen removed not be distributed. One final point, for those contributor mentioned above I do have a copy of the current version that supports 8087/80287 NCP this copy is approximately 7K smaller than the version that emulates the 8087/80287 NCP and run faster (at least for the 8087).