NAME
quickplot — fast interactive 2D plotter and data viewer
SYNOPSIS
quickplot [OPTIONS] [file1] [OPTIONS] [file2]
DESCRIPTION
quickplot is more like an interactive data browser than an interactive
picture editor. The difference between this 2D plotter and most 2D
plotters is that the primary purpose of Quickplot is to help you
quickly interact with your data. Of secondary importance is to make a
pretty static picture of your data. Features that distinguish
Quickplot include: one click zooming, any number of plots with
different scales displayed at one time, value picking for any number of
plots with different scales displayed at one time, and reading data
from standard input. These features become indispensable when you’re
looking at data sets with 10,000 to 1,000,000 and more data points.
You can’t look at a 2D plot with 100,000 points unless you can quickly
zoom. If you need to look at hundreds of files each with 100,000
points, the command line options in Quickplot may save your sanity.
This manual page was written for the Debian distribution because the
original program does not have a manual page. Instead, it comes with
documentation in html format that can obtained by running the program
and pulling down the Help Menu. The html files can be found at
/usr/share/doc/quickplot/html/
OPTIONS
These programs follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with long
options starting with two dashes (‘-’). A summary of options is
included below.
-a --about
Display some information about Quickplot
-c RGB --canvas-color RGB
start quickplot with the graph background (canvas) color RGB.
Examples: --canvas-color #FF0000 or --canvas-color "red"
would make it red
-d --different-scales
load plots on the same graph with different scales. By
default Quickplot will load plots on the same graph with the
same scale if the span of x,y values in all the plots are
within an order of magnitude of each other
-geometry GEOMETRY --geometry GEOMETRY
create the initial window with the given geometry GEOMETRY,
see man page X(1) for the GEOMETRY format. Example: quickplot
--geometry=1000x300-0+30
-C RGB --grid-color RGB
RGB may be in one of these formats:
· #RGB (each of R, G and B is a single hex digit)
· #RRGGBB
· #RRRGGGBBB
· #RRRRGGGGBBBB
· A name from the X color database, which may be in
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt. Example colors are
"steelblue" and "gainsboro".
-g SIZE --grid-line-width SIZE
start quickplot using plot grid width SIZE in pixels
-h --help
Show summary of options.
-b CHAR --label-separator CHAR
when reading labels from the last file in the argument list
before this option flag use CHAR as the label (single
character) separator. The default label separator is ’ ’
(space). If this file is not an ASCII text file this will be
ignored. See option: --labels or -L.
-L --labels
read labels from the first line not skipped of the last file
in the augment list before this option flag. If this file is
not an ASCII text file this will be ignored.
-I SIZE --line-width SIZE
start quickplot using plot line width SIZE in pixels
-l [L_OPTIONS] --linear-field [L_OPTIONS]
make a field that is a uniformly changing linear sequence of
values, like for example time. The number of values will be
gotten from the previous file’s values loaded. The field
generated will be added as the first field of the previous
file. For sound files this option is ignored.
L_OPTIONS
The L_OPTIONS only have an effect after the --linear-field
(or -l) option and they act on the field made from that
argument. The L_OPTIONS are:
· --start VALUE or -r VALUE set the first value in the
sequence to VALUE. The default first value will be
zero.
· --step SIZE or -t SIZE set the sequence step size to
SIZE. The default is 1.
-B --no-buttons
start quickplot with no button bar
--no-default-plots
by default when no --plot or -p options are given Quickplot
will make some plots with the files loaded at start up. This
option will cause Quickplot not to make these default plots.
When files are loaded using the GUI defaults plot will not be
made if this is set.
-G --no-grid
start quickplot with out drawing graph grid lines, by
default, in the graphs
--no-gui
start quickplot with out showing any of the standard GUI’s
(graphical user interfaces). This is the same as uses the
options --no-buttons --no-menubar --no-statusbar and --no-
tabs.
-i --no-lines
start quickplot to plot without drawing lines in the graphs
by default
-M --no-menubar
start quickplot with no menubar
-N --no-pipe
don’t read data in from standard input
-o --no-points
start quickplot to plot without drawing points in the graphs
by default
--no-statusbar
start Quickplot with no status bar displayed. The Quickplot
status bar is a thin widget at the bottom of the main
Quickplot window which displays pointer x, y graph values and
mode information.
--no-tabs
start Quickplot with no graph tabs displayed. Quickplot uses
a notebook like widget to let you select and view multiple
graphs.
-n NUM --number-of-plots NUM
set the possible initial number of plots to NUM. The default
possible initial number of plots is 12.
-P --pipe
read in data from standard input. By default Quickplot looks
for data from standard input and stops looking if no data is
found in some short amount of time. This option will cause
Quickplot to wait for standard input indefinitely.
-p LIST --plot LIST
plot the following list of fields, LIST, at startup.
example: --plot "0 1 3 4" will plot field 1 VS field 0 and
field 4 VS field 3. DataFields are numbered, starting at 0,
in the order that they are read in from a file or created, as
in the case of option --linear-field. A separate Graph Tab
will be created for each --plot (or -p) option given.
-O SIZE --point-size
SIZE" 10 start quickplot using plot point size SIZE in pixels
--print-about
prints the About HTML document to standard output and then
exits
--print-help
prints the Help HTML document to standard output and then
exits
-s --same-scale
plot all start-up plots on the same scale
--silent
don’t spew even on error. The --silent option will override
the effect of the --verbose option.
-S NUM --skip-lines NUM
skip the first NUM lines in the previous file read. The
previous file in the argument list should be an ASCII text
file.
-v --verbose
spew more to standard output
-V --version
Show version of program.
--with-libsndfile
if quickplot is linked with the libsndfile --library, print
the version of the libsndfile library that quickplot is
linked with, and exit returning status 0 if quickplot is
linked with the libsndfile library and 1 if quickplot is not
linked with the libsndfile library
KEYBINDINGS
Quickplot has GUIs for all of the following immutable keyboard short-
cuts:
· a show information about Quickplot using a web browser
· b toggles the visibility of the button bar
· c copies the current focused main window frame
· d delete the main window. This will not close the last main
window.
· f makes a new main window frame
· g show/hide the graph configuration widget
· h show help using a web browser
· i save a PNG image of the graph
· m show/hide the menu bar
· n make a new graph
· o open a data file
· p show/hide the plot lister widget
· q quit
· s toggles the visibility of the status bar
· t toggles the visibility of the graph tabs
· esc close the current focused window. This will not close the
last main window.
AUTHOR
Quickplot is written by Lance Arsenault.
This manual page was written by Gopal Narayanan (gopal@debian.org) for
the Debian system (but may be used by others). Permission is granted
to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the
GNU General Public License, Version 2 any later version published by
the Free Software Foundation.
On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License
can be found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL.
quickplot(1)