DataGraph 2.0 Released
The excellent graphing/plotting program DataGraph, from Visual Data Tools, Inc., has been updated to version 2.0. DataGraph 2.0 has been in the works since December and this version has long list of improvements. Some highlights are:
- Style sheets, and global line style, marker size.
- Drastically improved font support - makes it easy to use LaTeX fonts in your graphs
- Hierarchical tables, allows you to manage thousands of columns.
- Can group drawing commands together, and hide/show all at once.
- A number of new drawing commands, among them a really really good Bar graph command (error bars, labels, quick stack/side by side etc).
- A really nice Template browser that can be used as starting points or a way to explore what DataGraph can do.
- Speech support, can read back what you entered, great for manual input.
- Improved import, both in terms of forgiveness, and also imports Plot data files and matlab binary files (saved using the -v4 flag).
- Lots of HUD windows to help zooming, handle error messages, pop up sliders to change values etc.
- Export graphics to SVG, and added support for high quality bitmap output (for further processing in PhotoShop etc).
I've been using the previous version and find DataGraph to be an excellent utility for generating charts and figures. And some of the new features, like the ability to group commands, will be a nice addition in terms of workflow. Overall this version looks to be a lot more polished and it appears that quite a bit of work went into improving how users interact with the program and manage their data.
DataGraph 2.0 sells for $69.
There is a trial version available here.
Comments
DataGraph
I've been using DataGraph for a year or more and like it a lot. It is completely focussed on serious 2D scientific charting and does this very well. For me, it is the long-awaited successor to the long-departed Cricket Graph for producing publication quality graphs.
It has a quite novel interface for creating a graph which takes a bit of getting used to but once you have the hang of it, is very powerful. Different types of graphs can be layered on top of each other to produce very useful visualisations. e.g. it is easy to graph simple point estimates with error bars supplemented by neighbouring histograms showing the full distribution.
I mainly use it for standard scientific line graphs/histograms/scattergrams but it is inherently flexible. e.g. I used it to create this figure:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24259997@N08/2988192069/sizes/l/
which was intended to closely mimic the form of an existing graph, but with altered sort order to more clearly examine the concept of swing states in US presidential elections, originally shown here:
http://eagereyes.org/blog/2008/swing-states.html
If you want close control over publication qulity graphing on a Mac, I strongly recommend downloading the functional demo. If you buy the software, I'd also recommend keeping up with the latest beta releases which the developer is very active in updating. In response to e-mails or the bulletin board, I've seen him upload several new versions a day in response to bug reports or feature requests from me and from other users.
DataGraph Framework
I also use DataGraph, but even more so, I use the DataGraph.framework that I think is free with the app. It allows you to write your own custom tools pretty easily so you can create functionality that DataGraph might not include, or you can just use it to streamline your workflow.
I believe there might also be an option to pay a one time flat fee for redistributable/resell rights for an application that uses the framework.
All in all, the functionality, support, and price are great. And I hope it sets the tone for all independent Mac developers.