Gnuplot in Action: Understanding Data with Graphs [Paperback]

Philipp K. Janert (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1933988398 | ISBN-13: 978-1933988399 | Publication Date: August 28, 2009 | Edition: 1

Statistical data is only as valuable as your ability to analyze, interpret, and present it in a meaningful way. Gnuplot is the most widely used program to plot and visualize data for Unix/Linux systems and it is also popular for Windows and the Mac. It's open-source (as in free!), actively maintained, stable, and mature. It can deal with arbitrarily large data sets and is capable of producing high-quality, publication-ready graphics.

So far, the only comprehensive documentation available about gnuplot is the online reference documentation, which makes it both hard to get started and almost impossible to get a complete overview over all of its features. If you've never tried gnuplot "or have found it tough to get your arms around "read on.

Gnuplot in Action is the first comprehensive introduction to gnuplot "from the basics to the power features and beyond. Besides providing a tutorial on gnuplot itself, it demonstrates how to apply and use gnuplot to extract intelligence from data. Particular attention is paid to tricky or poorly-explained areas. You will learn how to apply gnuplot to actual data analysis problems. This book looks at different types of graphs that can be generated with gnuplot and will discuss when and how to use them to extract actual information from data.

One of gnuplot's main advantages is that it requires no programming skills nor knowledge of advanced mathematical or statistical concepts. Gnuplot in Action assumes you have no previous knowledge of either gnuplot or statistics and data analysis. The books starts out with basic gnuplot concepts, then describes in depth how to get a graph ready for final presentation and to make it look "just right" by including arrows, labels, and other decorations.

Next the book looks at advanced concepts, such as multi-dimensional graphs and false-color plots "powerful features for special purposes. The author also describes advanced applications of gnuplot, such as how to script gnuplot so that it can run unattended as a batch job, and how to call gnuplot from within a CGI script to generate graphics for dynamic websites on demand.

Gnuplot in Action makes gnuplot easy for anyone who needs to do data analysis, but doesn't have an education in analytical tools and methods. It's perfect for DBAs, programmers, and performance engineers; business analysts and MBAs; and Six-Sigma Black Belts and process engineers.

What's Inside:

* Creating graphs with gnuplot * Data transformations and filters * Preparing/polishing graphs for final presentation * Publishing graphs in print or on the Web * Using gnuplot's power features * Gnuplot scripting and programming * Types of graphs and when to use them * Techniques of graphical analysis * How to build, install, and develop for gnuplot * Command and Option reference organized by concept

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Philipp K. Janert is Chief Consultant at Principal Value, LLC. He has been a gnuplot user for more than 15 years and regards it as one of the indispensable tools in his toolbox. He has worked for small start-ups and in large corporate environments, both in the US and overseas, including several years at Amazon.com, where he initiated and led several projects to improve Amazon's order fulfillment processes. Philipp K. Janert has written about software and software development for the O'Reilly Network, IBM developerWorks, IEEE Software, and Linux Magazine. He holds a Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Washington. Visit his website at www.principal-value.com.

Product Details

• Paperback: 396 pages
• Publisher: Manning Publications; 1 edition (August 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1933988398
• ISBN-13: 978-1933988399
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #422,041 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great book about technical graphics, October 1, 2009

By 

Boris Veytsman (Sterling, VA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gnuplot in Action: Understanding Data with Graphs (Paperback)

I have been using Gnuplot for more than twelve years, so I thought the
author could not tell me anything I did not know. I was completely
wrong. As it turned out, I did not know how to use color palettes
efficiently to visualize a structure in complex data.

Gnuplot became the tool of choice for many scientists and engineers.
It combines a powerful language, an intuitive and simple command
interface, publication quality graphics and the ability to quickly
generate many different plots for data exploration. It is free and
easily integrated with other programs (LaTeX, Octave, Maxima to name a
few). This book is a long awaited "Gnuplot bible" - a must for
anybody seriously working with numerical data. It is very well
written, the examples are carefully chosen and explained. It is
nicely typeset. The book is a pleasure to read or browse, which
becomes progressively rare for technical literature.

The book does not require a pre-existing knowledge of Gnuplot, and can
be used as a textbook for self-teaching or maybe as a part of a course
of data analysis and visualization. Nevertheless, it contains many
tips and tricks interesting not only for a novice, but also for a
seasoned user.

The book also contains a treatise on data graphing "in general", not
related specifically to Gnuplot. The principles discussed there are
sound, and could be of a general interest.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A power tool for plotting, October 3, 2009

By 

Bas Vodde (Singapore) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gnuplot in Action: Understanding Data with Graphs (Paperback)

Gnuplot is a small program that I always find on unix systems I work with. Every now and then, I start it (mostly by accident) and then I'm unable to do anything with it. It has an interesting name, but... as someone who rarely needs to draw graphs, I never had the urge to study it at all.

When I saw Gnuplot in action, I got interested though. A whole book on this 'small' tool which I don't know anything about. So, I started reading and was amazed about the things you can do with gnuplot. It is an incredibly powerful tool for drawing graphs and analyzing data. The book didn't cause me to suddenly draw more graphs, but I do know which tool to use and how to use it when I *do* need to analyze data.

The book consists of four different parts. The first part is called Basics and covers exactly that. It explains how to draw simple graphs and how to work with data. The second part is called Polishing and takes the basics further and shows how to draw graphs that look good.

Part three probably surprised me much -- called Advanced Gnuplot. Chapter 8 discusses how to draw 3d graphs and chapter 9 discusses how to use color in the graphs. The examples the author uses are really impressive (and luckily, the book has some color pages to show the result). Chapter 12 reminds us that gnuplot is in the spirit of unix tools and shows how to script it and how to combine it with other applications. Part four, the last part, covers graphical analysis of data.

I was positively surprised about the book. It was well written, so well that even a person who only started gnuplot by accident could understand it. And, already very early in the book is demonstrates the usefulness of gnuplot in real life. Then it increases the complexity so that, as reader, you come to see why it is such a powerful tool also for more complex work.

If you are interested in plotting or in learning about gnuplot, I would strongly recommend this book. For people who don't need to do advanced plotting, this book is probably not for you. Four our of five stars as it does exceptionally well what it should do -- explain gnuplot.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gnuplot explained!, February 19, 2010

By 

Darryl Pace (Nashville, TN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Gnuplot in Action: Understanding Data with Graphs (Paperback)

I'm excited about Gnuplot as a graphing tool and about "Gnuplot In Action" as a guidebook on how to effectively use Gnuplot to produce the graphs I need in the work I do.

For a couple of years I used and experienced the limitations of several plotting software products. The primary limitation of the products was their inability to handle very large data sets. I found Gnuplot via google, and it set me free, as far as plotting data sets of seemingly any size. My only beef with it was not with the Gnuplot product itself, but with its documentation. I found the Gnuplot docs and online help pages to be a little difficult to decipher. Then along came the book, "Gnuplot In Action". Problem solved.

This book is great.

It is thorough and covers all aspects of Gnuplot.
It is clearly written, well-organized, and easy to understand.
It will open up a world of graphing possibilities to the Gnuplot user...at least, that's what it did for me. It shed light on the little I understood about Gnuplot before reading the book, and introduced me to many additional Gnuplot capabilities I was unaware of.

Plain and simple: if you use Gnuplot and would like to understand it better, this book is for you. If you are looking for an excellent plotting tool -- one that is highly configurable and can easily handle millions of data points, then download Gnuplot and get this book. If you need to do graphical analysis and/or produce publication-quality graphs, Gnuplot is the tool for you and "Gnuplot in Action" is the book that can shed light on how to achieve those goals using Gnuplot software.