DATAPLOT Documentation

Adobe Acrobat

The Dataplot Reference Manual is a combination of HTML and PDF (Portable Document Format) files. your browser needs to be able to launch the Adobe Acrobat reader (or some other plug-in that is able to view PDF files).

You only need the Acrobat reader. This reader is freely downloadable from the above Web site and is supported for most common computer systems (PC Windows 95/98/NT2000/XP, MacIntosh, most common Unix workstations). For best results with Netscape, it is recommended that you install the reader as a plug-in rather than a helper application. This is done automatically for the PC installation. Other software may also be used to view PDF files (e.g., ghostview). The Dataplot Reference Manual is a combination of HTML and PDF (Portable Document Format) files. If you do not already have a PDF reader installed, a number of freely available PDF readers are available for download. In addition to the Adobe reader, links to a number of other freely available PDF readers are available at http://pdfreaders.org.

New Commands Documented in the NEWS File

New commands are documneted in the online NEWS file. Most of these new commands have been incorporated into the online Reference Manual (although not the printed copy). There is sometimes a lag before new commands are incorporated into the online Reference Manual, so it is worthwhile checking out the NEWS entry from the main Dataplot web page.

Additional Printed Documentation

The Reference Manual is intended to be a reference manual, not a a tutorial. We still provide some of the earlier printed documentation since it is more tutorial in nature than is the Reference Manual. The following documentation is available:

"Graphics Primer", James Filliben, unpublished document, (PDF format).
"NBS Special Publication 667: Dataplot Introduction and Overview", US Department of Commerce, James Filliben, 6/1984 (PDF format).
"Dataplot--An Interactive High-Level, Language For Graphics Non-Linear Fitting, Data Analysis, and Mathematics", Proceedings of the Third Annual Conference of the National Computer Graphics Association, Anaheim, CA, June, 1982, James Filliben (pdf format).
"Techniques for the Fitting and Verification of Linear/Non-Linear Models using Dataplot", James Filliben, unpublished document, (PDF format).
This contains a number of examples of fitting non-linear models. In particualr, there are a number of examples fitting rational function models.

Note that these are PDF files created by scanning the original document. We do not have these in a more native format (e.g., Word or Latek). I rescanned these documents (4/5/2005) using better scanner software, so these versions are more legible than the previous versions were.

Although this documentation is old and does not include a lot of useful enhancements, it still provides a good introduction to the command line version.

In addition, many of the entries on the Dataplot web page provide a more tutorial introduction to Dataplot. In particular, the printed tutorial documentation does not describe the usage of the graphical interface (GUI) version. Check the GUI Mode entry for help in getting started with the GUI.

NOTE: We have published a CD containing the NIST/SEMATCH e-Handbook of Statistical Methods, the Dataplot software, and a copy of the Dataplot web pages (including this Reference Manual). See http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/toolaids/cd.htm for details and availability.

You can access a copy of the Dataplot web pages (which includes the Reference Manual) for local installation from anonymous ftp:

Our anonymous ftp site performs an "nslookup" command in order to identify the requesting site. The nslookup command is used to query internet domain name servers. If our ftp site rejects you, it is likely due to the failure of this nslookup query to resolve your internet name/address. If this happens, I cannot really provide any assistance. My only suggestion would be to talk to your local system administrators to see if there is some reason why your machine is not resolved by nslookup.

I will no longer be sending hard copy versions of the Reference Manual. We are not allowed to charge for the documentation (the US Government has pretty strict rules about who is allowed to collect money) and the number of requests that we are now recieving is making it prohibitively expensive for us to send the hard copy version for free. The electronic form included on the CD will be sent instead.

Dataplot Reference Manual

The Dataplot HELP command provides on-line documentation from within a Dataplot session. Extensive off-line documentation is available in the Dataplot Reference Manual (2000 pages).

The online documentation is available by clicking on the cover page of the documentation volume you are interested in:

Citation

If you need to provide a citation for Dataplot, you can use one of the following.

Heckert, N. A. and Filliben, James J. (2003). "NIST Handbook 148: DATAPLOT Reference Manual, Volume I: Commands", National Institute of Standards and Technology Handbook Series, June 2003.
Heckert, N. A. and Filliben, James J. (2003). NIST Handbook 148: Dataplot Reference Manual, Volume 2: Let Subcommands and Library Functions", National Institute of Standards and Technology Handbook Series, June 2003.
Heckert, N. A. (2001). Dataplot website at the National Institute of Standards and Technology: http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/software/dataplot.html/, June 2001.
Filliben, James J. (1984). "DATAPLOT--Introduction and Overview", NBS (National Bureau of Standards) Special Publication 667", June 1984.
Filliben, James J. (1981). "DATAPLOT--An Interactive High-Level Language for Graphics, Non-Linear Fitting, Data Analysis, and Mathematics", Computer Graphics, Volume 15, Number 3, August 1981, pp. 199-213.

Date created: 6/5/2001
Last updated: 3/15/2010
Please email comments on this WWW page to sedwww@cam.nist.gov.

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