How to use the 3d Data Plotter

1. Enter the URL of the data file (must be on local server)
2. Press "Plot"

The data file will then be parsed and plotted by the applet. Parsing takes quite a while currently, but I'm working on that. Once the file has been plotted, you can change the viewing angle, the axis length, or zoom in or out of the plot (Plot Scale), and then hit "Replot" and you will see the data plotted in the new configuration.

If you type in the name of a new data file and hit "Plot" again, that data file will be plotted along with any other data files plotted thus far. Color is assigned to a given plot the first time it is plotted by pushing one of the three colored buttons before hitting "Plot". You can "Plot" and "Replot" as often as you wish. Hitting "Clear" will remove all files from the Plotter's buffer.

Example:

There are three files on the local server. (They're really there, so you can try this yourself.) Their URL's are:

http://pilot.msu.edu/user/brechtjo/javaJunk/data1.dat http://pilot.msu.edu/user/brechtjo/javaJunk/data2.dat http://pilot.msu.edu/user/brechtjo/javaJunk/data3.dat

To view all three, I might:

1. Enter the URL of "data1"
2. Hit "Plot"
3. Zoom in a bit by changing the value of "Plot Scale"
4. Enter the URL of "data2"
5. Hit the yellow button, so the dat from this file will be plotted in yellow
6. Hit "Plot" (Now I'll see a plot that has the data from "data1" plotted in blue, along with the data from "data2" plotted in yellow.
7. Hit "Clear" (The plots go away)
8. Enter the URL of "data3"
9. Hit the green button
10. Hit "Plot" (Now I'll see the data from "data3" plotted by itself

The "Perspective" angles are standard Euler rotation angles. That is, the coordinate system is first rotated an angle phi about the x3 axis, then by an angle theta about the x1 axis, then by an angle psi about the x3 axis. The initial perspective phi = theta = psi = 0, is on such that x3 points into the screen, and the x2 axis is "up".