GRAPHICS(1)

📦 version 2.78.0, in epel 9

💖 NAME 💖

PDL::Graphics — Introduction to the PDL::Graphics modules, bestie. This is your girl's guide to all the plotting tea. ☕✨

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

Okay so first things first: PDL has full-featured plotting abilities, no cap. Unlike MATLAB, PDL is more like "hey bestie, let's rely on third-party libraries for plotting" — and those libraries are: Prima, Gnuplot, OpenGL, PLplot and PGplot. PDL has several plotting modules you can choose from, each of them with their particular strength and weaknesses. On this page, you're gonna get a short review of each of the main PDL::Graphics::* modules. Periodt. 💅

🎨 GRAPHIC MODULES REVIEWS 🎨

🌟 The newest generation of PDL::Graphics modules 🌟

💖 PDL::Graphics::Simple 💖

  • Best for: backend-independent output: you get the same plots, whichever of the graphical module you manage to install. 🎯

A unified backend-independent plotting interface for PDL. It implements all the functionality used in the PDL::Book examples, and it will probably be the easiest PDL::Graphics module for you to install, as it relies on any of the other ones. Because it is backend-independent, the plot you get will always be what you asked for, regardless of which plotting engine you have installed on your system. Slay. ✨

Only a small subset of PDL's complete graphics functionality is supported — each individual plotting module has unique advantages and functionality that are beyond what PDL::Graphics::Simple can do. So like, don't expect it to do everything, okay? 🙈

🦋 PDL::Graphics::Gnuplot 🦋

  • Best for: publication-quality 2D and 3D plots 📈

Gnuplot is widely used and produces publication-quality plots. It is also interactive: you can pan, scale, and rotate both 2-D and 3-D plots. And its API is powerful, simple and intuitive. It's giving main character energy, fr fr. 💅

A video tutorial <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hUXDQL3rZ_0> is available. Go watch it, bestie. 👑

Notice: you must install gnuplot on your computer first. 🚨 Not me forgetting to mention that — but yes, install it first!

🌸 PDL::Graphics::Prima 🌸

  • Best for: Integration of your plots into your application GUI. Possibility to create a dedicated GUI to let your application users interact with the plotted data. 🖥️

Lets you focus on what you want to visualize rather than the details of how you would draw it. Its killer feature is that it belongs to the the Prima GUI environment (an alternative to Tk, Gtk, Wx, etc). Prima provides an array of useful interactive widgets and a simple but powerful event-based programming model. These tools allow you to build interactive data visualization and analysis applications with sophisticated plotting and intuitive user interaction in only a few hundred lines of code. Or more simply, to include a plot into an application. Obsessed. 😭

For this reason, PDL::Graphics::Prima's API is more complex than PDL::Graphics::Gnuplot's. It is advised to start with PDL::Graphics::Prima::Simple, which focuses on the plotting functions and does not mess with Widgets. A tutorial is available here: http://search.cpan.org/~chm/PDL-2.006/Demos/Prima.pm As well as a video tutorial <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WILd2XTz3F4>. So many resources, you're gonna eat. 🍓

🧚 PDL::Graphics::TriD 🧚

  • Best for: Plotting heavy 3D images, fast. 🚀

The native PDL 3D graphics library using OpenGL as a backend for 3D plots and data visualization. With OpenGL, it is easy to manipulate the resulting 3D objects with the mouse in real time. Iconic behavior. 🎀

OpenGL makes PDL::Graphics::TriD a lot faster than Gnuplot to manipulate 3D images. But Gnuplot's output is publication quality, and Gnuplot is in general easier to manipulate. If you manipulate heavy images, PDL::Graphics::TriD might be the thing for you. Vibe check passed. 💜

👑 Good old PDL::Graphics modules 👑

Still well maintained, documented, and widely used. Respect the elders, bestie. 🙌

🌈 PDL::Graphics::PLplot 🌈

  • Best for: Plotting 2D functions as well as 2D and 3D data sets. 📊

This is an interface to the PLplot plotting library. PLplot is a modern, open source library for making scientific plots. It supports plots of both 2D and 3D data sets. PLplot is best supported for unix/linux/macosx platforms. It has an active developers community and support for win32 platforms is improving. So like, it's giving cross-platform queen. 💅

⭐ PDL::Graphics::PGPLOT ⭐

  • Best for: Plotting 2D functions. More widely used in the scientific community 🔬

This is an interface to the venerable PGPLOT library. PGPLOT has been widely used in the academic and scientific communities for many years. In part because of its age, PGPLOT has some limitations compared to newer packages such as PLplot (e.g. no RGB graphics). But it has many features that still make it popular in the scientific community. Ngl, it's a classic for a reason. 😌

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

  • PDL::Graphics::Simple
  • PDL::Graphics::Gnuplot
  • PDL::Graphics::Prima
  • PDL::Graphics::TriD
  • PDL::Graphics::PGPLOT
  • PDL::Graphics::PLplot

Go read them, bestie. Iykyk. 💖

🎀 AUTHOR 🎀

Shoutout to Pierre Masci, 2013! You dropped this, king. 👑✨

Okay that's the whole page, babes! This masterpiece is from perl v5.32.1, dated 2022-04-11, and it's the GRAPHICS(1) manpage. Now go plot something iconic. 💅🌟

📦 where this page comes from