[vtkusers] Is VTK suitable for mathematical function graphing ?

[Cliff Y]

--- "Gopalakrishnan, Gowri"
<Gowri.Gopalakrishnan at inteq.com> wrote:
> Yes I agree with Prabhu that VTK can do 3d, 2d
> plotting. But you have to
> remeber that it is not a plotting tool and graphical
> tool, so if you are
> interested in serious plotting (even like xmgr) then
> it is not
> necessary to use VTK. The other tools are much more
> easy to use and
> easy to learn for that purpose.

Here's the background from which I'm asking the
question - I'm hoping at some point to design a
graphical front end for a computer algebra system, and
I would like to include robust graphing abilities. 
There are capable 2D plotting libraries, but I've yet
to find a 3D system for this job with graphics I like,
at least under GPL.  If plplot (for example) were
hooked up to VTK, the results would be both visually
stunning and useful (plplot seems to be a nice setup,
but I can't say much for what I've seen of it's
output.)  Also, there has been some basic work done to
allow wxWindows to display VTK windows, which makes it
even more interesting.  Both are cross platform, and
both are capable - an unusual combination.

> But if you are interested in simple plots then VTK 
> can do it well and the 3d
> plotting is very nice with VTK. I am using VTK now
> to do 2d and 3d plotting.
> But since i am more interested in 3d representation
> I like to use 
> VTK, but if i were more interested in plotting
> (graphs etc) i would go for
> xgr, gnuplot like tools.

for regular stuff I agree, but if I'm going to have to
do a lot of coding work anyway, it seemed like it
might be worthwhile to hook in a powerful graphics system.

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