Re: --enable-thin-spline

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Ethan Merritt wrote:

> On the other hand, if SuSE has been shipping it that way for some
> years and we have not received any bug reports on it, that may be
> evidence that it is in good shape.

--enable-thin-spline differs from most other options in gnuplot in that 
it doesn't just enable or disable a feature, but rather chooses a 
different method to implement the same feature: set dgrid3d.

Thin-plate splines provide a radically different way of producing a 
continuous surface from non-gridded data that can then be sampled to 
yield a grid.

I.e. it's not really a question of receiving bug reports, it's one of 
getting different output from the same gnuplot script, caused by a build 
option reported only where most people never look: in 'show version 
long', in a form they won't understand.

> Could somebody provide an example plot where this option makes
> a difference?

Any plot using dgrid3d is expected to come out different with 
--enable-thin-splines.  Some will differ more than others.

In the longer term, --enable-thin-splines really should be replaced by 
an 'algorithm' option in 'set dgrid3d'.

And for what it's worth: I'm with Ethan on this: now is certainly not 
the time to change the default state of this setting.