I recently went on a quest for software that would plot data from college lab experiments. Golden Software's Grapher 3 came up on a search of graphing software and seemed to be a viable candidate. Grapher 3 does much more than what I really needed at the time, and at first glance, seemed to be too complex to whack out the simple graph I needed by the following morning. But here is a brief rundown of its capabilities followed by an evaluation of its performance.
Grapher 3's capabilities include thirteen types of two-dimensional plots, charts, and graphs. Three-dimensional plots are available with Golden Software's product, Surfer 7, available separately. The demo version of Grapher 3 has only print, save, copy, cut, and export disabled, but the application window can still be captured with the Print Screen key.
The EULA (end user license agreement) seems to say that for each license, you can use the program on your laptop, desktop, and the system at work provided that it is you that is using it and that you aren't using it on more than one machine at the same time. The EULA also seems to say that when you no longer want it, you can't sell it to someone else. But I could be wrong.
First of all, the User's Guide is excellent—constructed so that the book opens flat and takes you through a well thought-out tutorial. After that, each chapter has an excellent discussion of the various parts of a graph, how to specify the data to plot, summaries of what plots Grapher 3 is equipped to draw, how to configure, format, and modify each part of a graph, and how to save or export the graph for use in other applications. The final chapter discusses how Grapher 3 can be automated through its own internal "Scripter" command set and/or external Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) programs.
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The user interface—the editing area—looks like an 8.5x11-inch piece of paper (which can be switched off) on a larger desktop area with horizontal and vertical ruler bars. There is also a zoom factor control but when set at 100%, it by no means relates to actual size. In fact, I see no reason why a 10 to 1000% zoom factor control is implemented. Zoom in or out as a percentage of what? Certainly not an actual-size 8.5x11" piece of paper. There is no calibration function that would make an inch mark on the rulers actually measure an inch. So what's the point?
The first "What the…?" I encountered was the tutorial data that, when plotted, filled the entire editing area while completely ignoring the image of that piece of paper. However, the plot is easily resized and moved so that it prints exactly on the page where it is placed. I've concluded that once the program has been used for the first time, the plot settings are saved for the next session. There are multiple levels of undo, from zero to 25.
All parts of the graph are under your complete control. However, the tick labels require sophisticated methods to get anything other than normal numeric values. For example, {22p, 23p, 24p,…} involves the use of "math text," a descriptive language similar to Postscript. These tick labels, or rather the descriptions of them, must be placed in a column in the worksheet and that column declared in the axis properties box. The tick labels also can have a prefix and suffix applied to the value—math text can be used there as well. Legends, data labels, titles, and extraneous text boxes have access to a mini-editor with the ability to insert characters from alternate font faces. Even with such capabilities, if you are already familiar with Microsoft Office's AutoShapes and equation editor, it might be faster to get the graphs drawn, copied over to the report, then finish up with AutoShape boxes, lines, and equations pasted alongside the plot.
Grapher's "worksheet" comes nowhere close to being a true spreadsheet. It most closely resembles a simple table layout with columnar data used for specific purposes. The table cells can contain only values or textual material—no formulas. There is a simple "data transform" feature whereby a new column of data can be mathematically derived from any other column(s) for specified rows, but nowhere can you identify a particular cell by its table coordinates. As such, even though the plot is dynamically updated when any value from an in-use data column in the worksheet is modified, no columns whose values were derived from other columns are subsequently updated. Be careful about this.
There is no intuitive way to enter sequential data. For example, to quickly create a column of numbers from 0 to 100 in 0.1 increments, you must either 1) enter your data sets in a true spreadsheet application that has "autofill," like Microsoft Excel, or 2) create a function plot Y=2 where X=0 to 100 in increments of 0.1, then export that plot data to a worksheet and save it for later use.1 This function—autofill—really should be a feature in a product of this caliber.
To explore the data plotted on the screen, you have access to a crosshair2 that will tag the coordinates of where you click, either anywhere in the chart area or only on the plotted line. You can add another plot, based on the selected plot, of a number of functions: as close to a linear, log, or polynomial fit as can be approximated, weighted and running averages, or a custom-defined function. From the worksheet, you can select one or more columns and ask for a statistical analysis report.
Many of the scientific experiments I had to conduct involved attempting to match data points to an equation. Sometimes those equations pass through values that might cause problems. For example, the function sin(x)/x, while causing a "divide by zero" error in other programs, is handled competently by substituting 0 with what some call the machine epsilon, a very small number (in this case, -4.44E-15).
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As mentioned earlier, Grapher 3 operations include the ability to be controlled by scripts written in a manner compatible with VBA. There is an editing window for code and a drag-n-drop window for dialog box forms. The included Scripter program matches somewhat with Microsoft's Visual Studio integrated development environment (IDE) but the coding style reminds me of pre-Word 6—otherwise known as WordBasic. The Scripter window provides for standard debugging techniques but does not have Visual Studio's "IntelliSense"3 functionality—which for me has become an indispensable feature. It's been a while since I last used WordBasic, and much of the Scripter chapter jogs foggy memories. But for the programmer schooled post-WordBasic, the UserDialog schema might be confusing relative to application window forms.
Programs written in Scripter are procedural, while applications written in VB or VBA are mainly "event-driven." Standard controls familiar to Visual Studio programmers are available, and any of the specialized ActiveX objects included with other applications can be accessed by Scripter code after finding and selecting any type library that is installed on your system. By using Microsoft's VBA, or when creating stand-alone Visual Basic applications, Grapher.Application objects are accessible. Be sure to use the approach best suited to your task at hand.
In summary, I urge you to look at Grapher 3 as a capable application to handle your 2-D plotting needs. There are other graphing utilities available and I recommend getting something that goes beyond your current requirements – you might want to use it for a long time. Here is a "been there, done that" hint: Start learning now how to use whatever package you eventually decide to get.
Grapher 3
$299, 30-day money-back guarantee
(discounts on quantity orders for university labs)
(discounts on quantity orders for end-users)
(no student discounts available)
Golden Software, Inc.
Golden, CO 80401
303-279-1021
Register to download the demo: 11.4 Megabytes
