XForms: Polar plot mode for xyplot?

Ivan Powis (pczip@chemistry.nottingham.ac.uk)
Mon, 05 Jan 1998 18:08:37 GMT

To subscribers of the xforms list from Ivan Powis <pczip@chemistry.nottingham.ac.uk> :

I have one feature I'd very much like to see added as an enhancement
to the xyplot object. That is the ability to produce polar plots from
(r, theta) data - I think these are known by some as antenna
plots. Several of my favourite xforms apps deal with angular
distribution data, and the polar plot is the most natural way to
display the data.

In principle drawing such a plot on a 2 dimensional space merely
involves transforming polar->cartesian coordinates of course, but care
has to be taken to get correct x and y pixel scaling so that the
circular theta axis (or arc thereof if theta ranges less than 0 to 2
Pi) does actually appear circular. I've played around with fudging the
normal cartesian xyplot using my own an external coordinate
transformations, but can't get an annotated (circular) theta axis this
way. I've also played around with a free object and direct drawing
functions to get decent arcs etc. But it would be really neat to have
this incorporated into the xyplot object in order to get the same
programming interface and facilities as for any other xyplot. I'd
envisage that this additional mode could be selected rather like log
scales and mapping are requested at present.

Anyone else see a use for this??

Ivan

--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------+
    ___  ___/   _  __ /  Ivan Powis                TEL: +44-115-951-3467 |
        /         /   /  Department of Chemistry   FAX: +44-115-951-3562 |
       /         /  _/   University of Nottingham                        |
      /         ___/     Nottingham NG7 2RD                              |
     /         /         UK                                              |
    /         /                      pczip@chem.nott.ac.uk               | 
_______/  ____/                      http://www.chem.nott.ac.uk/IP.html  |
-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

_________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, send the message "unsubscribe" to xforms-request@bob.usuf2.usuhs.mil or see http://bob.usuf2.usuhs.mil/mailserv/xforms.html Xforms Home Page: http://bloch.phys.uwm.edu/xforms List Archive: http://bob.usuf2.usuhs.mil/mailserv/list-archives/