Re: plot matrix?

[Ethan M. <merritt@u.washington.edu>]

On Sunday 22 November 2009, Philipp K. Janert wrote:
> Are there legitimate uses for "matrix" with "plot", when
> using different [not image] styles?

I have explored this question a bit more.

points:

  Works fine.  The numeric value in the matrix can be used to set
  the point size, or type, or color.  This should be documented
  somewhere.

labels:

  Can never work to read strings from the file without radically
  changing the way the data is read and stored.  It would be possible 
  to generate labels from a numeric value stored in the file.
  (Needs a patch, but it's a simple patch).
  Not sure whether that is sufficiently useful to allow
  "... matrix ... with labels".

dots:

  Possible, but why would you want to?

circles/boxes/etc:

  You can't pass enough information in the single value to make
  these useful.

lines:

  I already mentioned one cute possible use, but I don't know
  if that is sufficient to allow "... matrix ... with lines".
  There may be additional opportunities here somewhere.