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Revision History (Archives, 2001)

12 December 2001
Version 1.5.2

• You may now include subscripts, superscripts, and characters from the Symbol font (Greek characters, trademark symbols, etc.) in the plot title lines and axis labels.
   
• Bug fix to Y=f(Y1,Y2) command and any other command that operated on 2 curves. Previous versions crashed in some circumstances due to a roundoff error. Thanks to Brian Smither for pointing out the problem.
   
• Bug fix to zoom code. Previous versions were prone to crash when a plot used multiple Y axes.
   
• Multiple-column format files had an arbitrary limit of 16 columns (X + 15 Y columns). This version has no limit (other than the maximum number of curves per plot, which is currently 100). Thanks to Henry Young for pointing out this problem as well as the zoom bug.
   
• Paste code balked at trailing spaces in the text and reported a not-so-helpful "Error reading numbers".
   
• Several menu commands have been tossed out in favor of a single input dialog for specifying plot extents, tick mark interval, and plot size. You can now specify a tick mark interval directly, which has been a confusing process in the past.
   
• Better support for export of 2D contour plots to .PDF file using Adobe Distiller. Please note that PDF Writer produces decidedly chunky contour plots, and currently I have no idea what the problem is. In any case, Distiller doesn't have this problem and works quite well.
   
• Fixed several problems with the commandline interface, which was broken in the last several versions.
   
• Changed the file import plugin interface a bit to distinguish between allowing/disallowing the selection of multiple files for one plot. (As with all other file types, to select multiple files in the "Open" dialog box, press and hold the Shift key while selecting.) If you're interested in this sort of thing be sure to download the new plugin examples.
   
• Print margins are saved to preference files (using File>Save Preferences).

14 August 2001
Version 1.5.1

• Bug fix to Paste code. Previously the number of data sets that could be copied from the Clipboard was limited by the length of a character string used to read one row of values. This effectively limited DPlot to pasting between 3 and 13 new curves. That limitation is now removed, and you can paste up to 100 data sets from 101 columns (X in the first column). Thanks to Ross Ashman for pointing out the problem.
   

9 August 2001
Version 1.5

• For instrumentation gurus - a fix for problem Pacific 5700 files. Alan Bell pointed out that some Pacific files claim 16 data segments though the file actually contains 15. In this release DPlot ignores the number_of_posttrigger_segments field in the header and uses the file size to determine the correct number of segments. Not an ideal solution, but this is about all we can do if the header info is wrong.
   
• Fixed a problem with the header info in DPlot macros that was carried over from previous versions of DPlot. Distributed macros (as well as any you create) should work fine now.
   
• A good suggestion from Nancy Strong: "Axes at 0" menu command forces axes to be drawn at X=0 and Y=0 (if those values are within the plot) rather than always drawing axes from the lower-left corner. This option applies only to linear X, linear Y plots.
   
• You can plot a function X=f(T), Y=g(T), where T is an independent parameter. This compliments the Y=f(X) command nicely, but more importantly the formula features of DPlot (Y=f(X), X=f(T),Y=g(T), and new Z=f(X,Y)) do not require the presence of Microsoft Excel. This version of DPlot uses the MindFly Function Parser from Andreas Hartl to parse formulas. Big thanks to Andreas for this excellent tool.
   
• DPlot can now work with 3rd-party plugins to read custom file formats or manipulate data in some way that is not currently handled by DPlot. Source code is provided with plugin examples.
   
• The big one... DPlot goes 3D. DPlot can produce 2 types of contour plots - contour lines or shaded color bands representing different Z values. Input data can be random 3D points or Z values on a rectangular grid. Random 3D values can be read from a file, pasted from the Clipboard, or sent to DPlot via DDE (see the DEMO.EXE program in the /C folder below DPlot). Gridded data can be produced via the new Z=f(X,Y) menu command or, again, via DDE.

  For random points, DPlot produces a convex mesh of triangles and assumes each triangle is planar. Values outside the mesh are not plotted.

  Starting with randomly-spaced points, you can generate a smoother interpolated grid using the "Generate Mesh" command on the Options menu.