Article: Enjoy the view

Polar line plots, specular highlights, 3D scatter symbols... New Tecplot 10 is the most powerful graphical visualisation software we’ve ever used.

Thomas Harding
Laboratory and Data Analysis Software Team

We’ve used many graphical visualisation software programs over the years, but Tecplot is without question the most powerful we’ve ever used. In the engineering and scientific field, it really is the big one. Tecplot enables data to be plotted and explored with more options and more flexibility than anything else available on the PC.

This month sees the introduction of Tecplot 10, which introduces even more incredible features, such as cell-centred grid structures, data journaling (where data alteration equations and operations are saved in a layout file), and variable and node map sharing. Many of these features make it more efficient and easier than ever before to work with very large data sets. where spheres, cubes and octahedrons can be specified for the scatter points, with sizes scaled by field variables.

Bitmap images can now be included in plots, applications of which will range from incorporating logos to overlaying graph contours on to maps. There’s also the ability to “super-sample” for high quality output, removing jagged edges by anti-aliasing.

Tecplot can now save images as JPEG files, with controllable compression, reflecting the increased need to use output on web pages. Despite the increased complexity of the functions involved, the authors have still managed to incorporate an undo feature for view and style changes, as well as data operations.