Grace

Description and Overview

Grace is a WYSIWYG tool to make two-dimensional plots of numerical data. It runs under various (if not all) flavors of Unix with X11 and M*tif (LessTif or Motif). It also runs under VMS, OS/2, and Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP). Its capabilities are roughly similar to GUI-based programs like Sigmaplot or Microcal Origin plus script-based tools like Gnuplot or Genplot. Its strength lies in the fact that it combines the convenience of a graphical user interface with the power of a scripting language. The combination allows grace to perform sophisticated calculations or to perform automated tasks.

Features

General

• WYSIWYG operation.
• Convenient point-and-click graphical user interface.
• Precise control of graph features.
• True publication quality.
• Graphs refresh almost instantly.

Export Options

• Exports high-resolution graphics to (E)PS, PDF, MIF, and SVG formats.
• Supports cross-platform PNM, JPEG and PNG formats.
• Device-independent Type1 font rastering, including anti-aliasing, ligatures and kerning.

Graphing Flexibility

• Unlimited number of graphs.
• Unlimited number of curves on a graph.
• Up to 256 customizable colors.
• 9 dashed line styles.
• 32 fill patterns.
• 10 built-in marker symbols; plus, any character glyph from any font can be used as a marker.
• Color/fill markers.
• Text annotations with subscripts, superscripts, mixed fonts, styles and colors and more complex typesetting.

Curve Fitting

• Linear and nonlinear least-squares.
• Calculation and display of residuals.
• Arbitrarily complex user-defined fitting functions, including dynamically loadable C/Fortran/... modules.
• Fitting with constraints.
• Region restrictions.
• Fitting with arbitrary weight functions.

Analysis Capability

• FFT.
• Integration and differentiation.
• Histograms.
• Splines, including Akima splines.
• Interpolation and smoothing.
• Convolution, correlation, and covariation.
• Sorting.

Data Formats

• Unlimited data size; up to six dimensions plus an optional array of strings.
• Reads text data input files.
• Reads 1D netCDF files.

Programmability

• Built-in programming language.
• Math functions manipulate entire array.
• Variables, including arrays (1D).
• User-definable functions via loadable modules.
• All aspects of plot outlook can be programmed.
• Controllable by external programs.

Customization/Extensibility

• Dynamic module loading - write your own C/Fortran/... modules.
• User-defined colors.
• User-supplied fonts and encodings.

Accessing Grace

• For NERSC machines do:

  module load grace

• To execute the program do:

  xmgrace

Additional Resources

• Grace: Gallery
• Grace Homepage
• ACE/gr Homepage, Grace's predecessor"

Availability at NERSC