Season's greetings (was Re: Some Python 2.1 ideas)

[Phil Austin]

"Alex Martelli" <aleaxit at yahoo.com> writes:

> 
> One thing I wasn't able to easily answer -- what's the
> *easiest* way for a Python beginner to do function-plots,
> with nicely labeled graphs, minor/major ticks, color,
> auto-scaled, &c &c?  On-screen display the major need,
> though nice printouts wouldn't hurt either.  Speed no
> issue, as his new PC is twice as fast as mine!-)
> 
> I tried downloading DISLIN but it appears to embed its
> own Python, need its own setting of PYTHONPATH; and
> (from a superficial look at it) it doesn't seem to do auto
> scaling.  Any suggestions?  I'd like to keep amazing him
> with Python power and ease, as what dad wouldn't like
> for his late-teenage son...:-).
> 
> 
> Alex

I've just finished using dislin in a remote sensing/radiative
transfer course I taught to about 25 third  year students with
little computing experience.  I'd take another  look at it;
it's a standard python extension (dislin.dll), and although
the help documents seem to require installation in c:/dislin,
I think the dll can go anywhere in your pythonpath.  The source
of the extension module is available with  the linux installation,
if you want to doublecheck.

For some examples  of  dislin in action, you can check out
some of my problem sets -- in particular see mplotII.py
at:

(http://www.geog.ubc.ca/~phil/courses/a301/ps4.html)

Not ready for release yet, but it might give you a general
idea about dislin's capabilities.  There's also 
testimage.py, if he'd like to look at 7 channel Landsat
Terrestrial Mapper imagery of Morro Bay, California (see
the accompanying png files, produced with imageplot.py).

Regards, Phil

-- 
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Associate Professor and Chair
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The University of British Columbia
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