Sometimes it is like comparing apples and pears.
Is your data in the form of a text file or do you have it as a spreadsheet? Do you need to visualize a 3D plot from various angles (direction)? I have the use of Excel in my office and found it is good (lots of bells and whistles) but that assumes you have MS Windows for your OS and have MS Office. It may not be a very reasonable assumption, there are a substantial numbers of other OSs like Mac, Unix, Linux or one of those workstation HP-UX based users. Excel is a spreadsheet that happens to have graphical capability. AFAIK, I have so far fail to coax MS Excel to render a 3D polar plot or generate an image (gif, png or bmp) file directly from Excel. Again, AFAIK Excel do not generate a pdf file directly without Adobe Acrobat (correct me if I am wrong). I go around that by generating a postscript file (print to file using a ps printer) and using the pdfwriter capability in ghostscript. Ghostscript is popular Linux users but it does have an excellent windows port that I use to get the pdf file. :-) I started using gnuplot on the Linux OS but found it equally versatile on the windows (port) version. :-) My computer at home comes bundled with MS Windows and Word but not Excel. IMHO, gnuplot is a graphical software that have mathematical capability and a very useful forum that is actively supported by a band of very dedicated users. Visualizing a 3D polar plot is a joy. Just my 2ยข worth. Tim Foo This message is from the IEEE EMC Society Product Safety Technical Committee emc-pstc discussion list. Visit our web site at: http://www.ewh.ieee.org/soc/emcs/pstc/ To cancel your subscription, send mail to: [email protected] with the single line: unsubscribe emc-pstc For help, send mail to the list administrators: Ron Pickard: [email protected] Dave Heald: [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Richard Nute: [email protected] Jim Bacher: [email protected] Archive is being moved, we will announce when it is back on-line. All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc
