plplot-general — PLplot user discussion group

Re: [Plplot-general] real-time plplot too slow

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

On 2014-04-15 12:10-0600 Derek Lamb wrote:

> plshades is too slow for just about every imaginable real-world application, as far as I've been able to tell.  If memory serves correctly, even if you output to a PDF and open in your favorite reader, it will render incredibly slowly.  Inefficiencies in the way the color tables are calculated, I think.
>
> So, this isn't really helpful, but I thought I'd let you know it's not just you.
>
> http://sourceforge.net/p/plplot/bugs/105/

The current implementation of plshades is grossly inefficient since it
calls a plshade variant (which processes the entire x, y plane to find
regions having the appropriate shade range and then fills those
regions with a single colour) for each member of a set of contiguous
shade ranges.  So the timing scales as nX*nY*nS, where nX is the
number of X points, nY is the number of Y points, and nS is the number
of (contiguous) shade ranges = number of times plshade is called. We
would welcome a patch that reimplemented plshades in a much more
efficient manner (say with timing that scaled as nX*nY).

@Tom: until someone does that, I suggest you survey the other PLplot
methods of displaying 3D functions, i.e., plmesh*, pl[f]surf*,
plot3d*, or plcont for speed. If some/all of those have the necessary
speed for real-time plotting, then that speed is something that should
be aimed for if/when there is a new plshades implementation.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________

Re: [Plplot-general] real-time plplot too slow

[Derek L. <de...@bo...>]

plshades is too slow for just about every imaginable real-world application, as far as I've been able to tell.  If memory serves correctly, even if you output to a PDF and open in your favorite reader, it will render incredibly slowly.  Inefficiencies in the way the color tables are calculated, I think.

So, this isn't really helpful, but I thought I'd let you know it's not just you.

http://sourceforge.net/p/plplot/bugs/105/

Derek

On Apr 15, 2014, at 6:46 AM, Owens, Thomas wrote:

> I have a real-time plotting application with multiple plots in one window that I would like to speed up some.  The code is
>  
> plspage(0,0,2000,430,0,0);
> plsdev(“xwin”);
> plsetopt(“drvopt”,”nobuffered=1”);
> plinit();
>  
> plssub(2,1);
>  
> while(1){
>   //get updated data
>   getdataPlot1(data_1);
>   getdataPlot2(data_2);
>  
> //update subplot 1
> pladv(1);
> plenv0(0.0, 1000, 0, 1000, 0, 1);
> pllab(“time”,”amp”,”data plot 1”);
> plshades(data_1, 1000,1000,NULL,0,1000,0,1000,……);
>  
> //update subplot 2
> pladv(2);
> plenv0(0.0, 1000, 0, 1000, 0, 1);
> pllab(“time”,”amp”,”data plot 2”);
> plshades(data_2, 1000,1000,NULL,0,1000,0,1000,……);
> }//end while(1)
>  
> However, the call to plshades that renders to the screen is too slow for my needs.  Is there a way to “speed up” plplot?  Would a GPU help?
>  
> Is there a more efficient way to do real-time plotting?
>  
> Thank you for your assistance.
> 
> Tom
>  
>  
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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[Plplot-general] real-time plplot too slow

[Owens, T. <Tho...@gt...>]

I have a real-time plotting application with multiple plots in one window that I would like to speed up some.  The code is

plspage(0,0,2000,430,0,0);
plsdev("xwin");
plsetopt("drvopt","nobuffered=1");
plinit();

plssub(2,1);

while(1){
  //get updated data
  getdataPlot1(data_1);
  getdataPlot2(data_2);

//update subplot 1
pladv(1);
plenv0(0.0, 1000, 0, 1000, 0, 1);
pllab("time","amp","data plot 1");
plshades(data_1, 1000,1000,NULL,0,1000,0,1000,......);

//update subplot 2
pladv(2);
plenv0(0.0, 1000, 0, 1000, 0, 1);
pllab("time","amp","data plot 2");
plshades(data_2, 1000,1000,NULL,0,1000,0,1000,......);
}//end while(1)

However, the call to plshades that renders to the screen is too slow for my needs.  Is there a way to "speed up" plplot?  Would a GPU help?

Is there a more efficient way to do real-time plotting?

Thank you for your assistance.

Tom

Re: [Plplot-general] PLplot status on Interactive Platforms

[neil <sal...@ti...>]

Alan,

Thank you for your comments. 

I'm working primarily on Windows 7, but could you say on which of the
interactive widgets it might be easiest to implement things like: 

1) view a surface plot from a range of directions; 
2) use the cursor to extract the numerical values of particular data points
on the plot;
3) rescale the axis or the plot?

Many thanks,
neil


-----Original Message-----
From: Alan W. Irwin [mailto:ir...@be...] 
Sent: 05 April 2014 06:42
To: neil
Cc: plp...@li...
Subject: Re: [Plplot-general] PLplot status on Interactive Platforms

On 2014-04-04 22:42+0100 neil wrote:

> Dear All,
>
>
>
> What is the current PLplot status on the functionality of the 
> Interactive Platforms. I see on the main PLplot webpage there is 
> reference to a number of platforms Qt, wx Widgets and the like? There 
> is little guidance in the manual as to how these work and it's not 
> clear from the examples if they are included. I'm basically looking to 
> make surface plots then change view position so I can see the plots 
> from any number of directions, basically for data analysis. Does such 
> a capability currently exist in PLplot, and if so which Interactive 
> Platform (Qt, Tcl, wx Widgets, .....) might be the best for this purpose?

It very much depends on your platform, and which PLplot dependencies are
available on that platform.

For Windows (other than Cygwin) you ordinarily would have to download binary
versions of the dependencies or else build them yourself (e.g., with
epa_build, see cmake/epa_build/README).  However, sometimes there are ABI
difficulties with dependencies that are downloaded in binary form.  That is
by definition (since they same compiler is used to build the PLplot
dependencies and PLplot itself) not an issue with epa_build, but that
project is still in its infancy and has by an large not yet been debugged on
Windows.  Note, figuring out the epa_build tweaks required to build all
dependencies of PLplot should be straightforward since the the Windows build
information is publicly available.  However, the difficulty is wading
through a mass of Windows build material for the PLplot dependencies to find
what is relevant.

On Unix (especially Linux) all PLplot dependencies are normally readily
available.

Whatever, your platform and the dependencies that are available for that
platform, the PLplot build system will adjust the PLplot build accordingly
to skip components (with a WARNING message) that cannot work because of
unavailable dependencies.  The build system also implements a lot of tests
for the components of PLplot that are built.
Those test scripts are implemented with bash and other Unix-like tools.  So
on non-Cygwin Windows you have to have MSYS on your PATH (but not
necessarily MinGW) in order for the tests to be implemented.

But assuming you specified -DBUILD_TEST=ON and have MSYS on Windows or you
are on some Unix-like platform, then you can review all targets available
using the "make help" or "nmake help" commands.  For example, our
interactive devices are typically related to tk, cairo, qt, and wxwidgets.
So to find out what is possible, use, e.g.,

software@raven> make help |grep tk
... plplottcltk
... plplottcltk_Main
... tclIndex_tk
... ntk
... test_ntk_dyndriver
... test_tk_dyndriver
... test_tkwin_dyndriver
... tk
... tkwin
... test_c_ntk
... test_c_tk
... test_octave_ntk
... test_octave_tk
... test_tk_01
... test_tk_02
... test_tk_03
... test_tk_04
... test_tk_plgrid
... target_xgtk_interfaceocaml
... tclIndex_examples_tk
... xtk01
... xtk02
... xtk04

and similarly for cairo, qt, and wx.  The try running some of those targets
to see what you get, e.g.,

make test_c_tk

Once, you find a target you would like to investigate further, typically
they are implemented in examples/CMakeLists.txt with all their dependencies
indicated in that file as well.

Note, also there is an overall interactive target called test_interactive
whose dependencies are the most reliable of the interactive tests.  So try
"make interactive" to get a feel for virtually everything interactive that
is available on your platform.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time Ephemerides project
(timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software package
(plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux
Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________


-----
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Re: [Plplot-general] PLplot status on Interactive Platforms

[Arjen M. <Arj...@de...>]

Hi Neil,

I am afraid this is not a well-developed area of PLplot. I just implemented the PL_ESC_GETC escape for providing (limited) interaction in the wingcc device, but I found out that we have no particular way of identifying which button was pressed (xwin uses the X Window macros, unless I have overlooked something, and for wingcc I simply used the value 1 - not really the platform-neutrality PLplot is meant for ;)).

The current implementation shows a "wait" mouse button rather than a crosshair - no idea why.

There is a lot more to say on the subject, but I have no time at the moment.

Regards,

Arjen



From: neil [mailto:sal...@ti...]
Sent: Friday, April 04, 2014 11:43 PM
To: plp...@li...
Subject: [Plplot-general] PLplot status on Interactive Platforms

Dear All,

What is the current PLplot status on the functionality of the Interactive Platforms. I see on the main PLplot webpage there is reference to a number of platforms Qt, wx Widgets and the like? There is little guidance in the manual as to how these work and it's not clear from the examples if they are included. I'm basically looking to make surface plots then change view position so I can see the plots from any number of directions, basically for data analysis. Does such a capability currently exist in PLplot, and if so which Interactive Platform (Qt, Tcl, wx Widgets, .....) might be the best for this purpose?

Thank you for any help.
neil


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Re: [Plplot-general] PLplot status on Interactive Platforms

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

On 2014-04-04 22:42+0100 neil wrote:

> Dear All,
>
>
>
> What is the current PLplot status on the functionality of the Interactive
> Platforms. I see on the main PLplot webpage there is reference to a number
> of platforms Qt, wx Widgets and the like? There is little guidance in the
> manual as to how these work and it's not clear from the examples if they are
> included. I'm basically looking to make surface plots then change view
> position so I can see the plots from any number of directions, basically for
> data analysis. Does such a capability currently exist in PLplot, and if so
> which Interactive Platform (Qt, Tcl, wx Widgets, .....) might be the best
> for this purpose?

It very much depends on your platform, and which PLplot dependencies
are available on that platform.

For Windows (other than Cygwin) you ordinarily would have to download
binary versions of the dependencies or else build them yourself (e.g.,
with epa_build, see cmake/epa_build/README).  However, sometimes there
are ABI difficulties with dependencies that are downloaded in binary
form.  That is by definition (since they same compiler is used to
build the PLplot dependencies and PLplot itself) not an issue with
epa_build, but that project is still in its infancy and has by an
large not yet been debugged on Windows.  Note, figuring out the
epa_build tweaks required to build all dependencies of PLplot should
be straightforward since the the Windows build information is publicly
available.  However, the difficulty is wading through a mass of
Windows build material for the PLplot dependencies to find what is
relevant.

On Unix (especially Linux) all PLplot dependencies are normally readily
available.

Whatever, your platform and the dependencies that are available for
that platform, the PLplot build system will adjust the PLplot build
accordingly to skip components (with a WARNING message) that cannot
work because of unavailable dependencies.  The build system also
implements a lot of tests for the components of PLplot that are built.
Those test scripts are implemented with bash and other Unix-like
tools.  So on non-Cygwin Windows you have to have MSYS on your PATH
(but not necessarily MinGW) in order for the tests to be implemented.

But assuming you specified -DBUILD_TEST=ON and have MSYS on Windows or you are on some Unix-like
platform, then you can review all targets available using the
"make help" or "nmake help" commands.  For example, our interactive
devices are typically related to tk, cairo, qt, and wxwidgets.  So
to find out what is possible, use, e.g.,

software@raven> make help |grep tk
... plplottcltk
... plplottcltk_Main
... tclIndex_tk
... ntk
... test_ntk_dyndriver
... test_tk_dyndriver
... test_tkwin_dyndriver
... tk
... tkwin
... test_c_ntk
... test_c_tk
... test_octave_ntk
... test_octave_tk
... test_tk_01
... test_tk_02
... test_tk_03
... test_tk_04
... test_tk_plgrid
... target_xgtk_interfaceocaml
... tclIndex_examples_tk
... xtk01
... xtk02
... xtk04

and similarly for cairo, qt, and wx.  The try running some of those
targets to see what you get, e.g.,

make test_c_tk

Once, you find a target you would like to investigate further, typically
they are implemented in examples/CMakeLists.txt with all their
dependencies indicated in that file as well.

Note, also there is an overall interactive target called
test_interactive whose dependencies are the most reliable of the
interactive tests.  So try "make interactive" to get a feel for
virtually everything interactive that is available on your platform.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________

[Plplot-general] PLplot status on Interactive Platforms

[neil <sal...@ti...>]

Dear All,

 

What is the current PLplot status on the functionality of the Interactive
Platforms. I see on the main PLplot webpage there is reference to a number
of platforms Qt, wx Widgets and the like? There is little guidance in the
manual as to how these work and it's not clear from the examples if they are
included. I'm basically looking to make surface plots then change view
position so I can see the plots from any number of directions, basically for
data analysis. Does such a capability currently exist in PLplot, and if so
which Interactive Platform (Qt, Tcl, wx Widgets, .....) might be the best
for this purpose?

 

Thank you for any help.

neil

 

 

Re: [Plplot-general] PLplot running in Netbeans IDE on 64-bit Windows

[neil <sal...@ti...>]

Steven,

Thank you for your help. I used the make in Netbeans to create the
executable, then I exited from Netbeans, and put the dll's from the PLplot
sourceforge download into the same directory as the executable. Opening a
cmd window I was then able to run the executable by just typing the name of
the programme. The menu window came up for the type of plot, then the plot
example was displayed, so no problems there. 

However, when I try running the program using Netbeans 'configuration'
either 'debug' or release, the only way I can get the program to display the
menu is to run the debugger (button to the right of the green arrow). If I
just run the program (green arrow) then it just hangs and does not display
the menu. When I try running this same program under Linux from Netbeans,
then it runs properly, ie displays the menu, then the graph. I conclude
therefore that it is some quirk associated with Netbeans on Windows. 

A response from the Netbeans forum on this last issues suggested that no
window appears because Netbeans thinks there is already a window open, which
of course there is not. So I'll probe further to solve this.

Many thanks,
Neil 

-----Original Message-----
From: Schwartz, Steven J [mailto:s.s...@im...] 
Sent: 01 April 2014 15:05
To: neil; plp...@li...
Subject: Re: PLplot running in Netbeans IDE on 64-bit Windows

Neil et al.

I had replied to your followup-query on this topic, but I see that my
message bounced from our mailserver because I sent you a batch script. So
here's a re-work of that email, and a zip file of the original attachments.
I also copy the text from that message, as I composed this one before I
realized the first bounced.
 
My program runs fine in the netbeans external console (which I think is an
ordinary windows cmd console). I'd try to get this working with a simple
hello world program. Note: I understand the difference between the netbeans
run button (green arrow) and the debugger, and I use the run button. It then
pops open a console , in which I get the standard plplot list of devices
from which to choose. The wingcc one works fine for me.


So firstly I'd write a hello world netbeans project and get that to run via
an external console.

Secondly, I think most problems are path-related. If you can get the plplot
examples to compile and run from a mingw console and build via the plplot
prescription in the plplot examples directory, your next action should be to
copy the source to one of your own directories and get it to build via a
simple makefile. I attach again an edit copy of x00c (edited to pick up the
generic plplot headers) and makefile. If the plplot dll and driversd
directories are in your PATH this should produce an executable that runs in
your mingw console.

Now you need to gte this to run in a windows cmd console. This requires
either that you put the plplot dll and driversd directories in your windows
PATH or that you run it from a batch script that sets up the necessary path.
I give an example of such a bat script.

Next you need to get netbeans to do this. I was unsuccessful in setting
environment variable within netbeans so I changed the Run Command there to
be my batch script.


If netbeans points to the same mingw installation you use from a mingw
console then I don't see why a 32bit installation shouldn't work fine. 

Finally if all the above doesn't result in success for you then you need to
give others more detail about what you've done (eg with real example files),
what messages you get from the console or windows popup error box, etc. 

And finally finally , hitting reply all to a message from the sourceforge
plplot list should send your message to that list (you obviously succeeded
in sending a message once).

I'm afraid I think I've now run out of ideas and expertise.

Good luck
Steve

Previous attempt and your query:
-----------------------------------------

Hi Neil,

First a health warning: I am neither a netbeans expert nor a mingw one.

Secondly, it might be easier if you gave a bit more information about what
you are doing exactly, what console messages you get, etc.

I have managed to get a simple build of plplot x00c.c building and running
both from a mingw console and from within netbeans. I attach

a) a version of x00c.c that has the #includes changed from plcdemos.h to the
plplot generic includes plConfig.h and plplot.h

b) a Makefile to build it

c) a batch file to run it from a windows cmd console instead of from a mingw
command line. Double clicking on the .bat file from Windows Explorer also
works fine. 

Put these in a folder on its own and then follow my logic/actions below.

For your info I run 

netbeans 7.4
Mingw x86_64-mingw32  (which is the 64-bit version) - gcc 4.7.2) a matching
msys build (from mingwbuilds) plplot 5.9.9 windows 7 64-bit computer. 

I don't really think any of the above are particularly critical as along as
they are consistent, i.e., built with roughly the same version of gcc. Most
of the problems are in getting the PATH set up properly, both in the build
stages and also at runtime.

> Well in Netbeans under File, Project Properties, Run you can set the 
> Console Type to External Terminal. However, this only works when you 
> run the debugger, I'm trying to find out how to run it just normally.

This is NOT my experience. In fact, I can't run anything in the netbeans
"internal console" so I select the external one, which runs in a standard
windows cmd console.as far as I can tell.

Msys/Mingw build
============
1  ensure the plplot dll's and driversd are in your PATH. My .profile has:

export PATH=<plplot install dir>/bin:${PATH} export PATH=<plplot install
dir>/lib/plplot5.9.9/driversd:${PATH}

where you need to put the path to the plplot install directory instead of
the <...>. It would be tidier to define an environment variable
PLPLOT_INSTALL_DIR and then use ${PLPLOT_INSTALL_DIR} in the above.

2  Edit the Makefile likewise to point to your plplot installation.
Actually, if you defined a shell environment variable as I suggest above you
could rely on that in the Makefile.

3  make

4  x00

This will pop open a console, give you a list of plplot devices, etc.

Netbeans
======
This caused me more grief, because I couldn't figure out how to convince
netbeans to search the relevant libraries nor get sense out of its console
messages. I tried adding the PATH specification to the Environment Variables
in Project Properties -> Run, but that didn't work. I also tried invoking a
"set" command in the "Run command", e.g.,

set PATH=... & ${OUTPUT_PATH}

but that didn't help. In the end, I wrote the attached batch script to set
the environment variables and then execute x00 and put that x00.bat as the
"Run Command". This works fine for me and again throws up a console querying
which device I want to use.

You could add the plplot libs and driversd permanently to your Windows PATH
environment, but I tend not to do it because I have easier control this way,
and try alternate versions without constantly changing the windows PATH,
etc.

> Just another question, do you use Mingw or Mingw-w64? I'm on a 64-bit 
> Windows 7 OS, and until now I've used Mingw successfully, which I 
> believe has a 32bit compiler, and have the bin directory set in PATH.
> I'm just wondering if moving to Mingw-w64 might make this run better for
PLplot.
> Could Mingw and Mingw-w64 work together, or would I have to uninstall 
> Mingw, to get Mingw-w64 working properly?

I doubt this is the source of whatever problems you're having as long as
your build of plplot was made using the same toolchain. I think it's
perfectly ok to have more than one version of mingw (I have two different
vintages sitting on my machine, one based on gcc 4.4.0 and a second with
4.7.2. I use the latter and have my paths set accordingly. I didn't install
these, nor msys, using an automated installation, but simply unpacked them
from mingwbuilds (which you can find under the mingw-w64 sourceforge pages
as "personal builds". I do this to fetch their matching Qt builds.

HTH as I'm running off the end of my expertise.

Best wishes
Steve

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven J Schwartz                  Phone:  +44 (0)207 594 7660
Professor of Space Physics         Fax:    +44 (0)207 594 7772
Director, Imperial Space Lab       www.imperial.ac.uk/spacelab
The Blackett Laboratory            Email:  s.s...@im...
Imperial College London            Office: Huxley 6M67A
London SW7 2AZ, UK                 Web:    www.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~sjs
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Re: [Plplot-general] PLplot running in Netbeans IDE on 64-bit Windows

[Schwartz, S. J <s.s...@im...>]

Neil et al.

I had replied to your followup-query on this topic, but I see that my message bounced from our mailserver because I sent you a batch script. So here's a re-work of that email, and a zip file of the original attachments. I also copy the text from that message, as I composed this one before I realized the first bounced.
 
My program runs fine in the netbeans external console (which I think is an ordinary windows cmd console). I'd try to get this working with a simple hello world program. Note: I understand the difference between the netbeans run button (green arrow) and the debugger, and I use the run button. It then pops open a console , in which I get the standard plplot list of devices from which to choose. The wingcc one works fine for me.


So firstly I'd write a hello world netbeans project and get that to run via an external console.

Secondly, I think most problems are path-related. If you can get the plplot examples to compile and run from a mingw console and build via the plplot prescription in the plplot examples directory, your next action should be to copy the source to one of your own directories and get it to build via a simple makefile. I attach again an edit copy of x00c (edited to pick up the generic plplot headers) and makefile. If the plplot dll and driversd directories are in your PATH this should produce an executable that runs in your mingw console.

Now you need to gte this to run in a windows cmd console. This requires either that you put the plplot dll and driversd directories in your windows PATH or that you run it from a batch script that sets up the necessary path. I give an example of such a bat script.

Next you need to get netbeans to do this. I was unsuccessful in setting environment variable within netbeans so I changed the Run Command there to be my batch script.


If netbeans points to the same mingw installation you use from a mingw console then I don't see why a 32bit installation shouldn't work fine. 

Finally if all the above doesn't result in success for you then you need to give others more detail about what you've done (eg with real example files), what messages you get from the console or windows popup error box, etc. 

And finally finally , hitting reply all to a message from the sourceforge plplot list should send your message to that list (you obviously succeeded in sending a message once).

I'm afraid I think I've now run out of ideas and expertise.

Good luck
Steve

Previous attempt and your query:
-----------------------------------------

Hi Neil,

First a health warning: I am neither a netbeans expert nor a mingw one.

Secondly, it might be easier if you gave a bit more information about what you are doing exactly, what console messages you get, etc.

I have managed to get a simple build of plplot x00c.c building and running both from a mingw console and from within netbeans. I attach

a) a version of x00c.c that has the #includes changed from plcdemos.h to the plplot generic includes plConfig.h and plplot.h

b) a Makefile to build it

c) a batch file to run it from a windows cmd console instead of from a mingw command line. Double clicking on the .bat file from Windows Explorer also works fine. 

Put these in a folder on its own and then follow my logic/actions below.

For your info I run 

netbeans 7.4
Mingw x86_64-mingw32  (which is the 64-bit version) - gcc 4.7.2) a matching msys build (from mingwbuilds) plplot 5.9.9 windows 7 64-bit computer. 

I don't really think any of the above are particularly critical as along as they are consistent, i.e., built with roughly the same version of gcc. Most of the problems are in getting the PATH set up properly, both in the build stages and also at runtime.

> Well in Netbeans under File, Project Properties, Run you can set the 
> Console Type to External Terminal. However, this only works when you 
> run the debugger, I'm trying to find out how to run it just normally.

This is NOT my experience. In fact, I can't run anything in the netbeans "internal console" so I select the external one, which runs in a standard windows cmd console.as far as I can tell.

Msys/Mingw build
============
1  ensure the plplot dll's and driversd are in your PATH. My .profile has:

export PATH=<plplot install dir>/bin:${PATH} export PATH=<plplot install dir>/lib/plplot5.9.9/driversd:${PATH}

where you need to put the path to the plplot install directory instead of the <...>. It would be tidier to define an environment variable PLPLOT_INSTALL_DIR and then use ${PLPLOT_INSTALL_DIR} in the above.

2  Edit the Makefile likewise to point to your plplot installation. Actually, if you defined a shell environment variable as I suggest above you could rely on that in the Makefile.

3  make

4  x00

This will pop open a console, give you a list of plplot devices, etc.

Netbeans
======
This caused me more grief, because I couldn't figure out how to convince netbeans to search the relevant libraries nor get sense out of its console messages. I tried adding the PATH specification to the Environment Variables in Project Properties -> Run, but that didn't work. I also tried invoking a "set" command in the "Run command", e.g.,

set PATH=... & ${OUTPUT_PATH}

but that didn't help. In the end, I wrote the attached batch script to set the environment variables and then execute x00 and put that x00.bat as the "Run Command". This works fine for me and again throws up a console querying which device I want to use.

You could add the plplot libs and driversd permanently to your Windows PATH environment, but I tend not to do it because I have easier control this way, and try alternate versions without constantly changing the windows PATH, etc.

> Just another question, do you use Mingw or Mingw-w64? I'm on a 64-bit 
> Windows 7 OS, and until now I've used Mingw successfully, which I 
> believe has a 32bit compiler, and have the bin directory set in PATH. 
> I'm just wondering if moving to Mingw-w64 might make this run better for PLplot.
> Could Mingw and Mingw-w64 work together, or would I have to uninstall 
> Mingw, to get Mingw-w64 working properly?

I doubt this is the source of whatever problems you're having as long as your build of plplot was made using the same toolchain. I think it's perfectly ok to have more than one version of mingw (I have two different vintages sitting on my machine, one based on gcc 4.4.0 and a second with 4.7.2. I use the latter and have my paths set accordingly. I didn't install these, nor msys, using an automated installation, but simply unpacked them from mingwbuilds (which you can find under the mingw-w64 sourceforge pages as "personal builds". I do this to fetch their matching Qt builds.

HTH as I'm running off the end of my expertise.

Best wishes
Steve

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven J Schwartz                  Phone:  +44 (0)207 594 7660
Professor of Space Physics         Fax:    +44 (0)207 594 7772
Director, Imperial Space Lab       www.imperial.ac.uk/spacelab
The Blackett Laboratory            Email:  s.s...@im...
Imperial College London            Office: Huxley 6M67A
London SW7 2AZ, UK                 Web:    www.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~sjs
--------------------------------------------------------------------

[Plplot-general] Environment variable to specify where font and driver dll are located.

[blackthirt33n . <jjo...@gm...>]

I want to specify where installed components are located by an environment
variable.
James

Re: [Plplot-general] PLplot running in Netbeans IDE on 64-bit Windows

[neil <sal...@ti...>]

Steve,

Well in Netbeans under File, Project Properties, Run you can set the Console
Type to External Terminal. However, this only works when you run the
debugger, I'm trying to find out how to run it just normally.

Just another question, do you use Mingw or Mingw-w64? I'm on a 64-bit
Windows 7 OS, and until now I've used Mingw successfully, which I believe
has a 32bit compiler, and have the bin directory set in PATH. I'm just
wondering if moving to Mingw-w64 might make this run better for PLplot.
Could Mingw and Mingw-w64 work together, or would I have to uninstall Mingw,
to get Mingw-w64 working properly?

Many thanks,
Neil

Re: [Plplot-general] PLplot running in Netbeans IDE on 64-bit Windows

[Schwartz, S. J <s.s...@im...>]

Neil,

Sorry I can't help with Netbeans although I have recently installed it. Have you tried using an external console rather than the internal Netbeans one?

> If i wanted to run the example programs outside of Netbeans, just so 
> see if i could get this program working under Windows, what would be 
> the best route (not using VS though)?

This is straightforward. I attach an example makefile that should point you in the right direction. Although it refers to my Cygwin installation, it works equally well under my msys/mingw one. I think you could avoid needing to have the plplot libs and drivers in your PATH if you compiled with an appropriate rpath flag, but I've not explored that.

HTH

Steve

--------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven J Schwartz                  Phone:  +44 (0)207 594 7660
Professor of Space Physics         Fax:    +44 (0)207 594 7772
Director, Imperial Space Lab       www.imperial.ac.uk/spacelab
The Blackett Laboratory            Email:  s.s...@im...
Imperial College London            Office: Huxley 6M67A
London SW7 2AZ, UK                 Web:    www.sp.ph.ic.ac.uk/~sjs
--------------------------------------------------------------------

[Plplot-general] PLplot running in Netbeans IDE on 64-bit Windows

[neil <sal...@ti...>]

Dear Community,

 

I'm trying to get PLplot to run in the Netbeans IDE on 64-bit Windows.
(Netbeans i'm using for my software development.) Outside of Netbeans I've
used the Cmake GUI to build the PLplot static and dynamic libraries. I've
then linked the libraries into the Netbeans project. The Netbeans IDE
compiles and builds the simple example program, x00.cc, without errors.
However, when i run the project in Netbeans no graphical output is
generated. However when i turn the debugger on and run the program, the
correct graphical output results. 

 

Would anyone have any advice as to how i might get this program to run
without having to run the debugger every time? (i know this may be a
Netbeans issue, but i'm addressing that in a separate line)

If i wanted to run the example programs outside of Netbeans, just so see if
i could get this program working under Windows, what would be the best route
(not using VS though)?

Many thanks,

neil 

 

Re: [Plplot-general] Build environment for plplot 5.10.0

[Arjen M. <Arj...@de...>]

Hi James,

if you have no specific needs for GTK, then you can leave them out. Actually, it is one of the tasks of the build system to find out which external libraries are available on your system and which can be used.

Minimum version of CMake: 2.8.9

You can use MinGW with the GCC compiler suite if you do not have Visual Studio.
If you do have Visual Studio, you can build with either "nmake" or VS - this is selected via the generator option of CMake.

There should not be much difference in the build process for PLplot 5.9.8 versus 5.10. Are there any specific difficulties you encounter?

Regards,

Arjen

From: blackthirt33n . [mailto:jjo...@gm...]
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2014 4:38 PM
To: plp...@li...
Subject: [Plplot-general] Build environment for plplot 5.10.0

My first question is how do I get my computer (actually Windows XP Virtual Machine)
as close to the one as the developers using to build plplot 5.10.0?
Obviously I need Visual Studio 2010 sp1. But what else?
What version of CMake?
What versions of the GTK libaries and from what source.
I have some success building 5.9.8 but nothing higher.
Regards.
James <black_13>
DISCLAIMER: This message is intended exclusively for the addressee(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient please notify the sender immediately and destroy this message. Unauthorized use, disclosure or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. The foundation 'Stichting Deltares', which has its seat at Delft, The Netherlands, Commercial Registration Number 41146461, is not liable in any way whatsoever for consequences and/or damages resulting from the improper, incomplete and untimely dispatch, receipt and/or content of this e-mail.

[Plplot-general] Build environment for plplot 5.10.0

[blackthirt33n . <jjo...@gm...>]

My first question is how do I get my computer (actually Windows XP Virtual
Machine)
as close to the one as the developers using to build plplot 5.10.0?
Obviously I need Visual Studio 2010 sp1. But what else?
What version of CMake?
What versions of the GTK libaries and from what source.
I have some success building 5.9.8 but nothing higher.
Regards.
James <black_13>

Re: [Plplot-general] Compiling plplot 5.10.0 on Windows with Visual Studio 2010.

[Arjen M. <Arj...@de...>]

Hi James,

yes, it definitely is ;).

What is your question?

Regards,

Arjen

From: blackthirt33n . [mailto:jjo...@gm...]
Sent: Monday, March 24, 2014 4:31 PM
To: plp...@li...
Subject: [Plplot-general] Compiling plplot 5.10.0 on Windows with Visual Studio 2010.

Is the correct list to ask about compiling plplot 5.10.0 on Windows with Visual Studio 2010?
black_13
DISCLAIMER: This message is intended exclusively for the addressee(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient please notify the sender immediately and destroy this message. Unauthorized use, disclosure or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. The foundation 'Stichting Deltares', which has its seat at Delft, The Netherlands, Commercial Registration Number 41146461, is not liable in any way whatsoever for consequences and/or damages resulting from the improper, incomplete and untimely dispatch, receipt and/or content of this e-mail.

[Plplot-general] Compiling plplot 5.10.0 on Windows with Visual Studio 2010.

[blackthirt33n . <jjo...@gm...>]

Is the correct list to ask about compiling plplot 5.10.0 on Windows with
Visual Studio 2010?
black_13

Re: [Plplot-general] interactive graphics in fortran

[Arjen M. <Arj...@de...>]

Hi Moez,

the functions for such interactive use have been implemented in C, but they have not been ported to the Fortran interface yet. The two standard examples, x01 and x20 (in C), show how to use the function plGetCursor and by the looks of it, it should not be too difficult to make the interface available in Fortran.

That said, I also had a look at the various drivers: most of the interactive (screen) drivers do handle the corresponding escape code, but the Windows' wingcc driver does not. So if you are interested in that driver, then more is needed than a mere wrapper function in the Fortran bindings. (Ideally we should propagate such a change to all other supported languages too.)

Regards,

Arjen

From: Moez Kilani [mailto:moe...@gm...]
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2014 10:33 AM
To: plplot_general
Subject: [Plplot-general] interactive graphics in fortran

Dear community,

is there any example of an interactive example of plplot
with fortran (get cursor position, put a point, move point, ..) ?

Best

Moez
DISCLAIMER: This message is intended exclusively for the addressee(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient please notify the sender immediately and destroy this message. Unauthorized use, disclosure or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. The foundation 'Stichting Deltares', which has its seat at Delft, The Netherlands, Commercial Registration Number 41146461, is not liable in any way whatsoever for consequences and/or damages resulting from the improper, incomplete and untimely dispatch, receipt and/or content of this e-mail.

[Plplot-general] interactive graphics in fortran

[Moez K. <moe...@gm...>]

Dear community,

is there any example of an interactive example of plplot
with fortran (get cursor position, put a point, move point, ..) ?

Best

Moez

Re: [Plplot-general] wingcc Freeze

[John D. <jb_...@bt...>]

Thanks again Alan for you comprehensive reply.

I will have a look at the wingcc code. I'm certainly no Windows hacker but I should be able to figure out the flow of the code and do a bit of investigation into my problem.

Kind regards

John

Sent from my iPad

On 16 Mar 2014, at 02:25, "Alan W. Irwin" <ir...@be...> wrote:

>>> On 15 Mar 2014, at 10:23, Werner Smekal <wer...@mi...> wrote:
>>> using wxWidgets on Windows I sometimes encountered a limit of GDI Objects. Everything you do in the GUI needs a GDI Object - but this is limited to 10000 per process. This could explain your behaviour (works a while and then crashes or freezes). E.g. see here:
>>> 
>>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9723470/whats-the-upper-limit-on-gdi-objects-for-one-process-in-windows-7
>>> 
>>> I don't know the wingcc driver to well, but maybe it uses always new GDI objects if you call plenv and if you do that hundred times....
> 
>> On 2014-03-15 22:48-0000 John Duffy wrote:
>> 
>> Hi Werner
>> 
>> Thanks for your input, I will look into a limit on GDI objects being the problem.
>> 
> 
> Hi John:
> 
> I doubt that limit is the entire issue.
> 
> I am completely unfamiliar with GDI'd, but if you read that
> stackoverflow URL mentioned by Werner above, the situation does sound
> analogous to normal memory leaks where because malloced memory areas
> are not freed properly with use the heap grows indefinitely until it
> exceeds the maximum memory allowed. Similarly, it sounds to me that if
> GDI's are not freed properly with use, then the number used will grow
> indefinitely until you exceed the GDI limit.  So increasing the GDI
> limit to deal with such a GDI leak is analogous to buying more RAM to
> deal with a memory leak, i.e., you may just be putting off the problem
> until continued use consumes the resource.
> 
> So I think what you should be looking for is whether once wingcc is
> done with a page, the GDI's created for that page are released
> properly before moving to the next page.  This is the issue that
> Werner refers to in the last line of the quote above since each plenv
> call generates a new page.  Page cleanup is probably one of the more
> difficult aspects of writing reliable PLplot device drivers so I would
> not be surprised if somewhere in the plD_eop_wingcc, plD_tidy_wingcc,
> and plD_bop_wingcc routines called indirectly by plenv, a GDI cleanup
> issue was created.
> 
> Alan
> __________________________
> Alan W. Irwin
> 
> Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
> University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).
> 
> Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
> implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
> Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
> software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
> (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
> and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
> __________________________
> 
> Linux-powered Science
> __________________________

Re: [Plplot-general] wingcc Freeze

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

>> On 15 Mar 2014, at 10:23, Werner Smekal <wer...@mi...> wrote:
>> using wxWidgets on Windows I sometimes encountered a limit of GDI Objects. Everything you do in the GUI needs a GDI Object - but this is limited to 10000 per process. This could explain your behaviour (works a while and then crashes or freezes). E.g. see here:
>>
>> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9723470/whats-the-upper-limit-on-gdi-objects-for-one-process-in-windows-7
>>
>> I don't know the wingcc driver to well, but maybe it uses always new GDI objects if you call plenv and if you do that hundred times....

On 2014-03-15 22:48-0000 John Duffy wrote:

> Hi Werner
>
> Thanks for your input, I will look into a limit on GDI objects being the problem.
>

Hi John:

I doubt that limit is the entire issue.

I am completely unfamiliar with GDI'd, but if you read that
stackoverflow URL mentioned by Werner above, the situation does sound
analogous to normal memory leaks where because malloced memory areas
are not freed properly with use the heap grows indefinitely until it
exceeds the maximum memory allowed. Similarly, it sounds to me that if
GDI's are not freed properly with use, then the number used will grow
indefinitely until you exceed the GDI limit.  So increasing the GDI
limit to deal with such a GDI leak is analogous to buying more RAM to
deal with a memory leak, i.e., you may just be putting off the problem
until continued use consumes the resource.

So I think what you should be looking for is whether once wingcc is
done with a page, the GDI's created for that page are released
properly before moving to the next page.  This is the issue that
Werner refers to in the last line of the quote above since each plenv
call generates a new page.  Page cleanup is probably one of the more
difficult aspects of writing reliable PLplot device drivers so I would
not be surprised if somewhere in the plD_eop_wingcc, plD_tidy_wingcc,
and plD_bop_wingcc routines called indirectly by plenv, a GDI cleanup
issue was created.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________

Re: [Plplot-general] wingcc Freeze

[John D. <jb_...@bt...>]

Hi Werner

Thanks for your input, I will look into a limit on GDI objects being the problem.

Kind regards

John

Sent from my iPad

> On 15 Mar 2014, at 10:23, Werner Smekal <wer...@mi...> wrote:
> 
> Hi John,
> 
> using wxWidgets on Windows I sometimes encountered a limit of GDI Objects. Everything you do in the GUI needs a GDI Object - but this is limited to 10000 per process. This could explain your behaviour (works a while and then crashes or freezes). E.g. see here:
> 
> http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9723470/whats-the-upper-limit-on-gdi-objects-for-one-process-in-windows-7
> 
> I don't know the wingcc driver to well, but maybe it uses always new GDI objects if you call plenv and if you do that hundred times....
> 
> HTH,
> Werner
> 
>> <compose-unknown-contact.jpg>	John Duffy	14 March 2014 22:46
>> Hi Alan
>> 
>> Thanks for your comprehensive reply, did you see my second posting regarding the freeze occurring when window events occur? I'm tending to think it is a window event issue in the wingcc code. I did monitor window resources during my program run and freeze, memory usage didn't appear to be a problem.
>> 
>> I will digest your email and do some further diagnosis as you suggest.
>> 
>> I'm using Windows only because I have to at the moment. I intend to migrate to a Unix platform, which I am more familiar with, as soon as possible.
>> 
>> Kind regards
>> 
>> John
>> 
>> Sent from my iPhone
>> 
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book
>> "Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their
>> applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field,
>> this first edition is now available. Download your free book today!
>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/13534_NeoTech
>> _______________________________________________
>> Plplot-general mailing list
>> Plp...@li...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-general
>> <compose-unknown-contact.jpg>	Alan W. Irwin	14 March 2014 22:33
>> 
>> Hi John:
>> 
>> My guess is you are encountering some sort of memory management issue
>> (heap corruption) or memory leak in the wingcc code or in the PLplot
>> core library that is triggered by all your iterations.
>> 
>> My bet is on a memory management issue for the combination of
>> wingcc and the general PLplot -np option that you are using. My
>> impression is that combination does not work as well as it should. For
>> example, although results for the wingcc device normally display well
>> for me on the Wine platform, they only show "transparent" results
>> (just the frame for the window with everything else leaking through
>> from the display below) if the -np PLplot option is used. Of course,
>> this strange behaviour might just be the result of a Wine bug, but the
>> other alternative is some memory management issue with how -np is
>> implemented for the wingcc device driver that is creating a wide
>> variety of peculiar results on various platforms.
>> 
>> To distinguish whether the problem is in wingcc + the -np option or in
>> the PLplot core, what happens if you try the equivalent for the svg
>> device? (The -np option is ignored in that case since svg is a
>> file-oriented device. However, use the command line options
>> 
>> -fam -fflen 3
>> 
>> so that each of your plot pages [generated by plenv] will be written
>> to a separate file rather than just the first page written to one file
>> with the rest of the pages dropped). I also suggest you keep the
>> number of iterations small until you get an idea of the disk space
>> consumed by all the different svg page files you are going to generate
>> by a large number of iterations.
>> 
>> If you do have any trouble with the svg case could you simplify the
>> example as much as possible while still demonstrating the issue, and
>> then send me that simplified code so I can try it for myself? I would
>> be happy to run it here on Linux under valgrind to check for any
>> memory management or memory leak issues. Unfortunately, I cannot do
>> such a check for wingcc since wingcc is Windows only and valgrind is
>> Unix only.
>> 
>> Alan
>> __________________________
>> Alan W. Irwin
>> 
>> Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
>> University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).
>> 
>> Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
>> implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
>> Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
>> software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
>> (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
>> and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
>> __________________________
>> 
>> Linux-powered Science
>> __________________________
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book
>> "Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their
>> applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field,
>> this first edition is now available. Download your free book today!
>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/13534_NeoTech
>> _______________________________________________
>> Plplot-general mailing list
>> Plp...@li...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-general
>> <compose-unknown-contact.jpg>	John Duffy	14 March 2014 21:21
>> Hi
>> 
>> I have the following pseudo code which work well until it freezes...
>> 
>> plsdev("wingcc");
>> plspage(0, 0, 1600, 800, 0, 0);
>> plspause(0);
>> plinit();
>> 
>> for (...) {
>> 	plenv(); // set new x & y max and min parameters
>> 	plline(); // data to plot
>> }
>> 
>> plend();
>> 
>> Like I say, it works well until it freezes after a few hundred iterations of displaying data. I would appreciate any help in pointers where to look for problems, my code or within the "wingcc" driver. When the code freezes, Windows reports the plotting window as not responding.
>> 
>> Kind regards
>> 
>> John
>> 
>> 
>> From: Alan W. Irwin <ir...@be...>
>> To: John Duffy <jb_...@bt...> 
>> Cc: "plp...@li..." <plp...@li...> 
>> Sent: Sunday, 2 February 2014, 18:47
>> Subject: Re: [Plplot-general] Updating Interactive Display with New Data
>> 
>> On 2014-02-02 13:54-0000 John Duffy wrote:
>> 
>> > Hi
>> >
>> > I would like to use PLplot to display experimental data as it is generated, i.e have the plot updated "live". I have tried a loop construct as per the pseudo code below, but I can only get the plot to update by clicking on mouse button 3. Any help/suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
>> >
>> >
>> > int main()
>> > {
>> >     double x[n];
>> >     double y[n];
>> >
>> >     plsdev("xwin");
>> >
>> >
>> >     plinit();
>> >
>> >
>> >     for (;;) { // Wait for new data and update x & y arrays
>> >
>> >         plenv(...); // Set new x & y ranges
>> >         plline(...); // Plot new data
>> >
>> >     }
>> >
>> >     plend();
>> >
>> >     exit(0);
>> >
>> > }
>> 
>> I suggest you try the -np (no pause between pages) command-line option or
>> the equivalent plspause(0) call.  We use the -np option a lot in
>> our interactive test targets for PLplot so that we don't have to
>> be clicking a lot when running those tests.
>> 
>> Alan
>> __________________________
>> Alan W. Irwin
>> 
>> Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
>> University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).
>> 
>> Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
>> implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
>> Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
>> software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
>> (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
>> and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
>> __________________________
>> 
>> Linux-powered Science
>> __________________________
>> 
>> 
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book
>> "Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their
>> applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field,
>> this first edition is now available. Download your free book today!
>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/13534_NeoTech
>> _______________________________________________
>> Plplot-general mailing list
>> Plp...@li...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-general

Re: [Plplot-general] wingcc Freeze

[Werner S. <wer...@mi...>]

Hi John,

using wxWidgets on Windows I sometimes encountered a limit of GDI 
Objects. Everything you do in the GUI needs a GDI Object - but this is 
limited to 10000 per process. This could explain your behaviour (works a 
while and then crashes or freezes). E.g. see here:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9723470/whats-the-upper-limit-on-gdi-objects-for-one-process-in-windows-7

I don't know the wingcc driver to well, but maybe it uses always new GDI 
objects if you call plenv and if you do that hundred times....

HTH,
Werner

> John Duffy <mailto:jb_...@bt...>
> 14 March 2014 22:46
> Hi Alan
>
> Thanks for your comprehensive reply, did you see my second posting 
> regarding the freeze occurring when window events occur? I'm tending 
> to think it is a window event issue in the wingcc code. I did monitor 
> window resources during my program run and freeze, memory usage didn't 
> appear to be a problem.
>
> I will digest your email and do some further diagnosis as you suggest.
>
> I'm using Windows only because I have to at the moment. I intend to 
> migrate to a Unix platform, which I am more familiar with, as soon as 
> possible.
>
> Kind regards
>
> John
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book
> "Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their
> applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field,
> this first edition is now available. Download your free book today!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/13534_NeoTech
> _______________________________________________
> Plplot-general mailing list
> Plp...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-general
> Alan W. Irwin <mailto:ir...@be...>
> 14 March 2014 22:33
>
> Hi John:
>
> My guess is you are encountering some sort of memory management issue
> (heap corruption) or memory leak in the wingcc code or in the PLplot
> core library that is triggered by all your iterations.
>
> My bet is on a memory management issue for the combination of
> wingcc and the general PLplot -np option that you are using. My
> impression is that combination does not work as well as it should. For
> example, although results for the wingcc device normally display well
> for me on the Wine platform, they only show "transparent" results
> (just the frame for the window with everything else leaking through
> from the display below) if the -np PLplot option is used. Of course,
> this strange behaviour might just be the result of a Wine bug, but the
> other alternative is some memory management issue with how -np is
> implemented for the wingcc device driver that is creating a wide
> variety of peculiar results on various platforms.
>
> To distinguish whether the problem is in wingcc + the -np option or in
> the PLplot core, what happens if you try the equivalent for the svg
> device? (The -np option is ignored in that case since svg is a
> file-oriented device. However, use the command line options
>
> -fam -fflen 3
>
> so that each of your plot pages [generated by plenv] will be written
> to a separate file rather than just the first page written to one file
> with the rest of the pages dropped). I also suggest you keep the
> number of iterations small until you get an idea of the disk space
> consumed by all the different svg page files you are going to generate
> by a large number of iterations.
>
> If you do have any trouble with the svg case could you simplify the
> example as much as possible while still demonstrating the issue, and
> then send me that simplified code so I can try it for myself? I would
> be happy to run it here on Linux under valgrind to check for any
> memory management or memory leak issues. Unfortunately, I cannot do
> such a check for wingcc since wingcc is Windows only and valgrind is
> Unix only.
>
> Alan
> __________________________
> Alan W. Irwin
>
> Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and 
> Astronomy,
> University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).
>
> Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
> implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
> Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
> software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
> (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
> and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
> __________________________
>
> Linux-powered Science
> __________________________
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book
> "Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their
> applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field,
> this first edition is now available. Download your free book today!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/13534_NeoTech
> _______________________________________________
> Plplot-general mailing list
> Plp...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-general
> John Duffy <mailto:jb_...@bt...>
> 14 March 2014 21:21
> Hi
>
> I have the following pseudo code which work well until it freezes...
>
> plsdev("wingcc");
> plspage(0, 0, 1600, 800, 0, 0);
> plspause(0);
> plinit();
>
> for (...) {
> plenv(); // set new x & y max and min parameters
> plline(); // data to plot
> }
>
> plend();
>
> Like I say, it works well until it freezes after a few hundred 
> iterations of displaying data. I would appreciate any help in pointers 
> where to look for problems, my code or within the "wingcc" driver. 
> When the code freezes, Windows reports the plotting window as not 
> responding.
>
> Kind regards
>
> John
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Alan W. Irwin <ir...@be...>
> *To:* John Duffy <jb_...@bt...>
> *Cc:* "plp...@li..." 
> <plp...@li...>
> *Sent:* Sunday, 2 February 2014, 18:47
> *Subject:* Re: [Plplot-general] Updating Interactive Display with New Data
>
> On 2014-02-02 13:54-0000 John Duffy wrote:
>
> > Hi
> >
> > I would like to use PLplot to display experimental data as it is 
> generated, i.e have the plot updated "live". I have tried a loop 
> construct as per the pseudo code below, but I can only get the plot to 
> update by clicking on mouse button 3. Any help/suggestions would be 
> greatly appreciated.
> >
> >
> > int main()
> > {
> >     double x[n];
> >     double y[n];
> >
> >     plsdev("xwin");
> >
> >
> >     plinit();
> >
> >
> >     for (;;) { // Wait for new data and update x & y arrays
> >
> >         plenv(...); // Set new x & y ranges
> >         plline(...); // Plot new data
> >
> >     }
> >
> >     plend();
> >
> >     exit(0);
> >
> > }
>
> I suggest you try the -np (no pause between pages) command-line option or
> the equivalent plspause(0) call.  We use the -np option a lot in
> our interactive test targets for PLplot so that we don't have to
> be clicking a lot when running those tests.
>
> Alan
> __________________________
> Alan W. Irwin
>
> Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and 
> Astronomy,
> University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).
>
> Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
> implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
> Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
> software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
> (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
> and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
> __________________________
>
> Linux-powered Science
> __________________________
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Learn Graph Databases - Download FREE O'Reilly Book
> "Graph Databases" is the definitive new guide to graph databases and their
> applications. Written by three acclaimed leaders in the field,
> this first edition is now available. Download your free book today!
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/13534_NeoTech
> _______________________________________________
> Plplot-general mailing list
> Plp...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/plplot-general

Re: [Plplot-general] wingcc Freeze

[Alan W. I. <ir...@be...>]

On 2014-03-14 21:46-0000 John Duffy wrote:

> [.... D]id you see my second posting regarding the freeze occurring
when window events occur? I'm tending to think it is a window event
issue in the wingcc code. I did monitor window resources during my
program run and freeze, memory usage didn't appear to be a problem.

You might well be right.  I don't have enough wingcc or Windows
platform knowledge to follow up on that possibility, but perhaps
someone else here with that required knowledge can take a look at that.

> I'm using Windows only because I have to at the moment. I intend to
migrate to a Unix platform, which I am more familiar with, as soon as
possible.

Interesting.  In the remarks that follow I am likely "preaching to the
choir" for your case, but I am going to go ahead with those remarks
anyway in case others here are considering moving their PLplot-related
development from Windows to Linux or vice versa.

On Windows other interactive device options besides wingcc are the
xcairo, qtwidget, and wxwidgets devices if you are willing to try
binary downloads of the required dependencies (pango/cairo, Qt, and
wxwidgets libraries).  However, such Windows binary downloads are
often plagued by an inconsistent ABI or inconsistent dependencies, and
the only reliable way to work around those issues is to build all
those dependencies yourself with a consistent compiler.  That is one
of the motivations for the epa_build project that is described in
cmake/epa_build/README.  Essentially all aspects of that project work
on Unix, and many aspects also work on Windows.  Thus, the epa_build
already has made possible an enhanced PLplot Windows experience.
However, the epa_build project is not yet ready for prime time on
Windows for the case of the pango/cairo and Qt PLplot dependencies
so the PLplot Windows platform still doesn't have all the
capabilities of the PLplot Linux platform.

Because of that current epa_build limitation, there is some motivation
(depending on what your other needs are) for moving your development
from Windows to Linux where the xcairo, qtwidget, wxwidgets, xwin, and
tk interactive PLplot devices are all available for you to try.  There
is normally no need to use epa_build for this case because all the
required dependencies of those devices are usually easy to install
from your Linux distro with results that have a consistent ABI and
consistent set of dependencies.  However, there is one obvious
exception where epa_build is also extremely useful on Linux
(especially "enterprise class" Linux); it allows PLplot developers to
try out the very latest versions of the PLplot dependencies if those
versions have not yet propagated to their Linux distribution.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
(unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
__________________________

Linux-powered Science
__________________________

Re: [Plplot-general] wingcc Freeze

[John D. <jb_...@bt...>]

Hi Alan

Thanks for your comprehensive reply, did you see my second posting regarding the freeze occurring when window events occur? I'm tending to think it is a window event issue in the wingcc code. I did monitor window resources during my program run and freeze, memory usage didn't appear to be a problem.

I will digest your email and do some further diagnosis as you suggest.

I'm using Windows only because I have to at the moment. I intend to migrate to a Unix platform, which I am more familiar with, as soon as possible.

Kind regards

John

Sent from my iPhone

> On 14 Mar 2014, at 21:33, "Alan W. Irwin" <ir...@be...> wrote:
> 
>> On 2014-03-14 20:21-0000 John Duffy wrote:
>> 
>> Hi
>> 
>> I have the following pseudo code which work well until it freezes...
>> 
>> plsdev("wingcc");
>> plspage(0, 0, 1600, 800, 0, 0);
>> plspause(0);
>> plinit();
>> 
>> for (...) {
>> plenv(); // set new x & y max and min parameters
>> plline(); // data to plot
>> }
>> 
>> plend();
>> 
>> Like I say, it works well until it freezes after a few hundred iterations of displaying data. I would appreciate any help in pointers where to look for problems, my code or within the "wingcc" driver. When the code freezes, Windows reports the plotting window as not responding.
> 
> Hi John:
> 
> My guess is you are encountering some sort of memory management issue
> (heap corruption) or memory leak in the wingcc code or in the PLplot
> core library that is triggered by all your iterations.
> 
> My bet is on a memory management issue for the combination of
> wingcc and the general PLplot -np option that you are using. My
> impression is that combination does not work as well as it should. For
> example, although results for the wingcc device normally display well
> for me on the Wine platform, they only show "transparent" results
> (just the frame for the window with everything else leaking through
> from the display below) if the -np PLplot option is used.  Of course,
> this strange behaviour might just be the result of a Wine bug, but the
> other alternative is some memory management issue with how -np is
> implemented for the wingcc device driver that is creating a wide
> variety of peculiar results on various platforms.
> 
> To distinguish whether the problem is in wingcc + the -np option or in
> the PLplot core, what happens if you try the equivalent for the svg
> device?  (The -np option is ignored in that case since svg is a
> file-oriented device.  However, use the command line options
> 
> -fam -fflen 3
> 
> so that each of your plot pages [generated by plenv] will be written
> to a separate file rather than just the first page written to one file
> with the rest of the pages dropped).  I also suggest you keep the
> number of iterations small until you get an idea of the disk space
> consumed by all the different svg page files you are going to generate
> by a large number of iterations.
> 
> If you do have any trouble with the svg case could you simplify the
> example as much as possible while still demonstrating the issue, and
> then send me that simplified code so I can try it for myself? I would
> be happy to run it here on Linux under valgrind to check for any
> memory management or memory leak issues.  Unfortunately, I cannot do
> such a check for wingcc since wingcc is Windows only and valgrind is
> Unix only.
> 
> Alan
> __________________________
> Alan W. Irwin
> 
> Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
> University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).
> 
> Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state
> implementation for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); the Time
> Ephemerides project (timeephem.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting
> software package (plplot.sf.net); the libLASi project
> (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of Linux Links project (loll.sf.net);
> and the Linux Brochure Project (lbproject.sf.net).
> __________________________
> 
> Linux-powered Science
> __________________________