PDL 2.006 released!
On behalf of the PDL Porters, and especially our tireless leader Chris Marshall, I am very happy to share the news that PDL 2.006 has been released, I’m reposting the announcement here, find the full message including release notes on the mailing list. It even includes my first contributions to the PDL core :-) Enjoy!
The PDL development team is pleased to announce the official release of PDL-2.006 and an updated draft of the PDL Book to accompany its release.
Of specific note:
PDL VERSION numbers now use single decimal format. This will be the standard going forward.
PDL now has three graphics options that build on all supported PDL platforms (thanks to work by Craig DeForest and David Mertens and a host of others):
PDL::Graphics::Gnuplot using the gnuplot program
PDL::Graphics::Prima based on the Prima toolkit
and
- PDL::Graphics::Simple a basic 2-D graphics layer that can use many of the existing PDL graphics modules with a uniform syntax.
ASPerl build issues have been resolved thanks to relentless testing, verification and fixes by Rob/sisyphus and other win32 PDL users.
As always, go to http://pdl.perl.org for information about all things PDL and how to get PDL for your platform.
Enjoy!
Chris Marshall
PDL-2.006 Release Manager
As I delve into the deeper Perl magic I like to share what I can.
Congratulations PDL team
Hi and thanks a lot to the team! I’ve used Matlab for a few years at work, and am quite excited about PDL which seems a lot more versatile, thanks to its Perl foundations.
One question from a PDL beginner: which Graphical libraries would you advice?
I guess i should read the doc and try them all. But there are many, and i found contradictory information. Maybe this can be clarified.
In this blog post you mention these three: - PDL::Graphics::Gnuplot - PDL::Graphics::Prima - PDL::Graphics::Simple From what you write, it seems that the last one is best to use, as it uses many of the existing PDL graphics modules with a uniform syntax. And if it doesn’t do some of the things that i need, i should then look at the other ones. Is that right?
But i am still confused, because in the PDL documentation the only two Graphical modules that are indicated are - PDL::Graphics::PGPLOT - PDL::Graphics::PLplot which are also the ones presented in the PDL Book.
Is any of these two sources of information more up to date than the other one, or is it just that the 5 modules should be present in both places? (this blog and the documentation) In which case it would be very helpful for beginners to have a very short summary/comparison/review that would indicate what each can do or cannot. Or, that would just say that they do exactly the same thing, so you the first you can install - if this was the case.
And then i also just found PDL::Graphics2D, whose documentation makes it feel like it could become an answer to my question, as it might replace the others in the future: “This is an umbrella class allowing for a simple interface to all plotting routines in PDL”. Even though it says: “This requires a lot more work before it is useful I feel, but it can be used already”. But it is presented in the book, even though it does not figure in the summary. So, that would be 6 modules to compare.
Also, it would be very helpful to add in the PDL Book’s summary the page number where each chapter can be found.
Er… Thanks a lot for PDL and congratulations!
I didn’t mean to write a negative message but rather to point at possible improvements, for beginners to know where to best start with plots. Cheers :-)
I’m rather sure you are the same person who has gotten a reply from the pdl mailing list, but for future readers I will answer here. Plotting has been the Achilles Heel of PDL for a while now. The old standards (PGPLOT and PLPlot) are aging and it shows, but they seen in many of the docs and tutorials, if for no other reason than we haven’t changed them yet. If they work for you then great! Then new kids on the block are Gnuplot and Prima. Use Gnuplot as an interface to the popular Gnuplot program and access its power, use Prima if you want dynamic plots or if you want to see the future of PDL. PDL::Graphics::Prima is a native plotting library written especially for PDL and using a GUI toolkit (Prima) which has been especially developed for Perl. I think eventually this will be the future of PDL’s plotting. The new Simple interface is seen by most as a “get started quick” interface which is more useful for learning PDL than learning about plotting.