[vslist] good plotting program?--MATLAB?

[Denis Pelli]

dear mickey

i find that it's very easy to create an initial graph in MATLAB, but 
that graph is rough and hard to improve. i've always given up before 
reaching anything like what i consider publication quality. (I have 
published a few MATLAB graphs, and i'm embarrassed by how rough they 
look.) Note, however, that my experience is with MATLAB 5. I am just 
about to install MATLAB 7 and i don't know whether things have 
improved.

I like the graphical user interface of kaleidagraph in which you can 
click on and tweak nearly everything, visually. it's a fast way of 
achieving a good graph.  i recognize the value, in principle, of having 
an alternate programmatic interface (as in Mathematica, Igor, and 
MATLAB), for occasions when you'll be producing many similar graphs, 
but i've had surprisingly little need for that in my work.

many people seem to use one program to create the graph, and another to 
tweak it. E.g. Mathematica-Illustrator; Mathematica-PowerPoint; 
Excel-Canvas.  i don't like that approach as i find that my graphs go 
through many drafts in which we add a bit of data or change the model 
slightly, and all the tweaking is lost every time you recreate the 
graph.

best

denis

On Jul 26, 2004, at 4:12 PM, Mickey Rowe wrote:

>
> Denis Pelli wrote:
>
>> version 1.0 of the Psych-toolbox for Mac OS X is being released now.
>
>> That software, an extension to MATLAB,
>
> Which points up something I've been wondering about all day... Denis,
> why do you feel a need to use anything besides Matlab for plotting?
>
> -- 
> Mickey Rowe     (rowe@psych.ucsb.edu)
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