Golden Software, a developer of affordable software for visualizing and analyzing diverse data sets, has rolled out the newest version of its Grapher scientific graphing package. Available today, the new version features improvements in axes and plots, as well as adding a new 3D plotting capability.
“In addition to the specific feature upgrades, Golden Software continues to make Grapher faster, more stable and easier to use,” said Paul Wickman, Grapher Product Manager.
Grapher is used extensively by scientists and engineers in environmental services and consulting, climate research, exploration, and academic pursuits. The package offers deeper insights into diverse data sets, including chemical, physical, geologic, and geospatial data, through 80 different 2D and 3D plotting types.
The newest release of Grapher, which is downloadable now to all users with active maintenance or subscription agreements, includes these enhancements:
Axes Enhancements
- Multiple Breaks on a Single Axis – Grapher now lets users add as many breaks as needed to a single axis. Designed primarily to eliminate long axis segments, users can also format the breaks with a variety of symbols and position them as desired on the axis.
- Inverse Relationships on Linked Axes – Inverse relationships, such as the Arrhenius plot relationship between Temperature and Activation Energy, can now be plotted by linking the axes to each other.
- Tick Enhancements – Grapher now enables the user to specify as many tick divisions or spaces as desired on Log10 and Ln scale axes. Users also have more control over Tick labels by positioning them as offsets anywhere on the X and Y axes.
Plot Upgrades
- Stacked/Adjacent Histograms – Users can now plot multiple Histogram sets together using the same Stacked or Adjacent setting to easily compare distributions between data sets, such as changing patterns on periodically collected data.
- Edit Class Scatter Plots – When plotting Text and Numeric classes, individual classes can be deleted or rearranged, and custom-named classes can easily be restored to default names.
3D Plot Transparency
- To improve the appearance of exported 3D graphs, Plot Transparency is now supported in all 3D plot types, including 3D Surface and Bubble plots.
Golden Software’s development team is working on new features, functionality, and enhancements for the next version of Grapher that will be released in 2023. Users with active maintenance or subscription can test drive these new capabilities by downloading Grapher Beta. Users are invited to send comments and questions directly to the Golden Software development team as they use the Beta version in their day-to-day workflows.
Specifically, the latest Grapher Beta features include:
Graph Gallery
- Grapher is first and foremost a visual communication tool; but regular file browsing through sample files and your own projects don’t lend themselves well to finding what you’re looking for. The new Graph Gallery allows users to search, sort and filter through compact views of plots without needing to open the full projects files.
- Users can also build their own custom sample galleries from their own projects and use these as templates for future work or to share with colleagues.
Worksheet Remapping
- Users often work with different versions of data that are in the same format. For example, streamflow data that is formatted exactly the same as an earlier version but for a different time period. The new “Remap Worksheets” command allows users to navigate to new/update data sources and assign them to an existing worksheet.
- When a new file is linked all associated objects (plots, axis, text, etc.) are automatically updated using the new data.
Performance Upgrades
- Thinned Plot option now allows users to selectively reduce or “thin” out data shown in plot views for much faster drawing of plots when working from large data sets, improving drawing performance and overall visual clarity.
- Auto Redraw feature now more closely matches the same function in Surfer. When enabled, all plot drawing when zooming and scrolling will be paused, which is particularly helpful when adjusting plots with large data sets.
Details on Grapher Beta may be accessed here: What is Grapher Beta?.