NsPlot Version 1.0

1. Overview
2. Software Design
3. Snapshot
4. User Interface
5. File Format
6. Use of Command Line Version
7. Installation
8. Limitations
9. Supported Platforms and Known Bugs

 1. Overview

NsPlot is a Java applet which allows users to analyze simulation data dumped from NetSim^Q. It provides facilities for visual display of simulation results as x-y plots, three dimensional plots, bar plots and/or pie plots. The current implementation status of NsPlot Version 1.0 is shown below:

Table 1. Implementation status of NsPlot Version 1.0.

1. There are two versions of NsPlot: the command line version (to be executed from the command line and/or a Tcl script) and the GUI version.
2. The major features of NsPlot include
   • Several ways of manipulating (adding/deleting/modifying) data sets.
   • A user-friendly GUI.
   • Support of the Xgraph file format.
   • Support of zoom-in and zoom-out features.
   • Support of numerous curve symbols and curve types

2. Software Design

NsPlot is a Java based application, but with little modification, one can change it to a Java applet to be incorporated into a webpage. The schematic architecture is shown below. The control interface manipulates the multiple data sets and displays them in the various modes specified by users. The 2D and 3D plots are the display panel for data sets. In addition, data sets are also shown in the control panel for 2-D plots. In short, data sets are documents, while the 2D/3D plot panels and the control panel are all different views of these data sets.

Figure 1. Schematic architecture of NsPlot

3. Snapshot

Figure 2. A NsPlot Snapshot.

4. User Interface

4.1. Menus

Figure 3. The NsPlot Menu.

NsPlot provides a user-friendly interface for data manipulation (adding/deleting/configuring data sets). It has five menu items, each one of which in turn has several sub-menus. The menu items are:

• File - provides file operations, such as open, save, save as.

Figure 4. The NsPlot File Sub-menu.

1. Open a plot in a pop-up window - opens a plot in another pop-up window.
2. Open a plot - opens a 2-D plot in the plot panel.
3. Open a 3D plot - opens a 3-D plot in the plot panel.
4. Save - save changes in the current file.
5. Save as - save changes in a new file.

• Add - adds a new data set to the existing data sets in the plot panel.

Figure 5. The NsPlot Add Sub-menu.

1. Add a dataset- imports another dataset from a specified file.

• Delete - deletes a selected data set.

Figure 6. The NsPlot Delete Sub-menu.

1. Del a dataset- deletes a selected dataset.

• Config - configures a selected dataset.

Figure 7. The NsPlot Configuration Sub-menu.

1. Global options - sets up the plot options for the plot panel.

Figure 8. The NsPlot Config Panel

• Help - provides help information.

Figure 9. The NsPlot Help Sub-menu.

4.2 Plot Panel

Figure 10. The plot panel, and a pop-up window for a data set.

The functions currently supported in the 2-D plot panel include

• Users may use the mouse to zoom in/out an area in a plot.
• Users may use the Fill buttom to restore the plot panel to the original graph.
• Progress shows the status when a graph of large size is being loaded.

Figure 11. The NsPlot 3D plot panel.

The functions currently supported in the 3-D plot panel include

• Users may rotate the plot in the vertical and/or horizontal direction (using the two control wheels in the bottom right cornor).
• Users may view the the 3-D plot in the x-y, y-z, or z-x plane (using the 3 buttons in the up right corner).
• Users may zoom in/out the 3-D plot (using the control buttons in the bottom left corner).

4.3 Control Panel

In the control panel, one can change the options for the display mode of a graph, and list all the data sets displayed in the current plot. Currently it works only for 2-D plots

Figure 12. The NsPlot Control Panel

• Graph Setting - allows users to specify (i) whether or not the grid mode is used and (ii) whether or not each data point is shown and if shown which mode (e.g., dot, bar, or impulse) is used.
• Table Setting - allows users to select the symbol used to mark data points
• Data sets - gives all the datasets in the current plot.

5. File Format

NsPlot fully supports the Xgraph format. In what follows, we give a brief introduction:

TitleText: specifies the title of the plot.

Xrange: xmin, xmax gives the range of the x coordination.

Yrange: ymin, ymax gives the range of the y coordination.

Grid on/off: decides whether or not the grid mode is used.

Xlabel: specifies the x label shown in the graph.

Ylabel: specifies the y label shown in the graph.

Marks: specifies the marker style.

NumSets: specifies the total number of datasets.

Color on/off: specifies whether to display a color graph or a black-and-white one.

A sample file is given below:

TitleText: My Plot

XRange: 0,4
YRange: -4,4
Grid: off
XLabel: X Axis
YLabel: Y Axis
Marks: various
NumSets: 11
Color: off

DataSet: dot
0,-4
1,-3
2,-2
3,-1
4, 0

DataSet: cross
0,-3.5
1,-2.5
2,-1.5
3,-0.5
4, 0.5

Lines: off

DataSet: square
0,-3
1,-2
2,-1
3,0
4,1

DataSet: triangle
0,-2.5
1,-1.5
2,-0.5
3, 0.5
4, 1.5

DataSet: diamond
0,-2
1,-1
2, 0
3,1
4,2

6. Command Line Version

The command line version is compiled to a .exe file under Windows. Users may also invoke it in a Java interpreter. The help menu can be displayed by

NsPlot -help

All the available options will then be listed. Then, NsPlot can be invoked with option(s) as follows.

NsPlot [options] filename

 

7. Limitations

NsPlot Version 1.0 is under development, and is known to have the following limitation:

• It does not support drawing of the pie chart.
• Many features in the 3D plot can be better enhanced.
• An applet version is under development and is expected to be available by April 1999.

8. Supported Platforms and Known Bugs

NsPlot was tested on the following configurations:

• Windows98/95
• HP/UX and Saloris 2.5.1

Last modified: 18 March 1999