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#515 support for d3.js, X3D, gITF or GeoTIFF image formats for interactive web plotting? (rotation using mouse and x,y and z coordinates on the mouse cursor for 3d plots)
open
nobody
None
5
2020-12-14
2020-10-17
No
Interactive plots on the web are a really important aspect of plotting, as of 2020! gnuplot is really feature rich but its hard to choose it over other plotting programs, especially when you've to make presentations and so.
Among those,
d3.js(which plotly is using) https://d3js.org
or gITF using WebGL https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glTF/blob/master/README.md
look the most promising.
d3.js especially as its tried and tested
Might be worth giving wasm a look as well! https://webassembly.org/
Last edit: Anonymous 2020-10-17
Anyway to have interactive plots on the web would do! I've given a few suggestions above, but the choice of method is completely the maker's choice! Again, its really important to have that feature at the current moment, for GNUPLOT.
Also, if possible, the 3d image made should be completely independent of gnuplot to embed it in websites.
Thank you!
I 100% agree with you that if one were starting today to write a plotting program it would be important to consider both web-based interaction and 3D plotting. But gnuplot was designed and implemented more than 30 years ago. 3D displays did not exist. The web did not exist. From the outset gnuplot tried to support a wide range of output devices, but 30 years ago that meant pen plotters, character cell terminals, and a few exotic options like PostScript. It took a lot of work to retro-fit things that now seem obvious, like transparency, smooth colors, non-ASCII text, desktop interactive displays, web browsers rather than pen plotters, onto the original code 2D framework. Because the input and output design layers are modular, the project could step-by-step add drivers for laser printers, then X-terminals, then workstations, then color workstations, then web-friendly formats like svg and html. But those additional features are still attached to a core layer of code that is a 2D framework. By the time anything reaches the output stages of the program, 3D coordinates have been lost. So there is no way to add an output driver for a VR format or Mesa or any other "modern" 3D data representation. You (er, "we") would have to rewrite the core layer of the program to preserve 3D coordinates rather than flattening them to 2D before sending them to an output module. Not impossible, but a huge job compared to adding a new output mode by supplying a new modular driver that plugs in to the existing framework.
Long story short: a request for 3D output is not so much a "feature request" as a "redesign the entire program" request. If that's a project that appeals to someone, they are welcome to work on it. But if it's a question of "could a quick change to gnuplot provide web-based 3D interaction for my current project?", the answer is no. For that you would have to look for other another program.
I totally understand. Thank you!
May I ask if gnuplot (C program itself) can just be compiled using webasm? The compiled version available separately, for the web? https://webassembly.org/ https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/WebAssembly/C_to_wasm
Would that make gnuplots web application, with a few minor tweaks?
Pardon me if I'm wrong, although its just a thought. Kindly check it out, if possible.😅
That was the link I provided in response to your other query:
http://gnuplot.respawned.com/
So gnuplot.respawned.com is kinda web based version of gnuplot?
Is there a way I can use it in a website or something? I can use two sliders (with 0:360) and use them with view(v1,v2) somehow! I can already do that! The only problem being, when they get converted to html, the connection with gnuplot breaks, and the slider is not associated with the plot anymore....
Last edit: Anonymous 2020-10-17
gnuplot.respawned.com is a js version of gnuplot right?
Thanks! I'll try tinkering with it! Also, right now emscripten provides wasm compilation too! I think the site or the github project use js and not wasm (as it says 2014 and wasm was released in 2017). wasm is a lot faster, comes close to native speed!
Anyway! Thanks for the help! Especially, its great knowing that something like gnuplot-js exists!
Last edit: Anonymous 2020-10-19
@sfeam
For now, how bout something like a terminal for web?
It'll be connected to gnuplot in the system? As soon as one shuts down gnuplot, the image will disappear too. Same functionality as the qt terminal, just on a browser!
Can this be done? Should I open a new feature request for it?
Something like, set terminal web
and splot() or plot() would open my browser instead of qt terminal
Last edit: Anonymous 2020-10-19
What would be the point? It would be less capable that existing interactive terminals. FWIW, I use gnuplot as a back end for several of my web sites. Gnuplot creates a set of images (svg or png) and a dynamically created web page displays them. No changes to gnuplot needed. But they are only intereactive to the extent that the svg image is accompanied by javascript for mousing. That gets back to the original question, right?
Last edit: Ethan Merritt 2020-10-19
Do you mean qt, wxt, svg, canvas? d3.js has much more interactivity than those! The interactivity of svg and canvas is quite limited. And when zooming the tics are gone soon.
The above would be a satisfactory solution and would kinda solve the rotation problem too, until the core functionality of gnuplot can be compiled using webasm(which'd probably take a few years...).
@sfeam or any other devs, If it can't be done, feel free to close this feature request!
Last edit: Anonymous 2020-10-19
I'm currently using a wrapper of gnuplot in a high level language and using it to make a jupyter notebook tutorial. The tutorial involves a lot of 3d plots, so interactivity is important! It'll also be a tutorial to gnuplot basics and how to use it to plot data!
Last edit: Anonymous 2020-10-19
Also, qt has webassembly support now... https://www.qt.io/qt-examples-for-webassembly
From the site
"just another target platform"
Can't the qt terminal be just "compiled" again? @sfeam If possible, please look into this....
Last edit: Anonymous 2020-10-19
So far as I can tell the qt-as-web-assembly only helps if gnuplot itself is already running in the web browser. In other words, if you already have gnuplot built via Emscripten then it would make lots of sense to modify/rebuild the qt terminal as the primary output mode rather than (as in the gnuplot.respawned.com example) producing a file (svg/png/etc) that is then displayed as a static image on the web page. So yes, this is a great idea. But it has to be a second step, not the first step.
Thanks a lot for looking into it！
I think its worth a try, although whenever you get time for it！