Date:    Mon, 1 Nov 1999 09:01:49 -0600
From:    "J. M. Aguiar" 
Subject: summary on 3D visualization

    Many thanks to the dozens of people who responded to my rather naive
inquiry.  It turns out that a number of the major statistical packages
can carry out the functions I need, almost as a sideline; I've tallied
the recommendations below and included the actual responses following.

    ArcView         1
    Excel (Table Wizard)     1
    Ferret (Linux app)     1
    JMP Statistics         11
    MatLab             11
    S-Plus             111
    SAS (aaaa!)          11
    Sigma Plot         111111
    SPSS             11
    Statistica         1
    Surfer             1
    Systat             11
    VisAD              1

    Sigma Plot looks like the hometown favorite.  Here's the actual
comments:

__

Try Systat. It has a 3D routine that allows you to rotate the display.

__

If you like java programming then I suggest using VisAD- it's a java
library that requires you to write your own app, though, so if you just
want something off-the-shelf then you should look elsewhere.

__

For visualizing your 3-d data, try Statistica -- it will do analyses but
also has a great graphics program.  Most U's have a site license for it,
so
you really don't have to pay the astronomical price cited in their
literature (nearly $1,000).  I think you can get it now for close to
$200..?

__

Sigma Plot can do that. It is not capable to rotate the
figure in real time, but it can show it (one step at a
time) in any angle you wish.

__

Sigmaplot 4 or 5 works quite well - lots of variations on 3-d graphs.
Try
also "Surfer."

__

JMP statistics software has data visualization components that do this.
Not sure how well it would work for presentation, but it will print it
out.
I'm running it on Macintosh, not sure if there is a version for PCs.
Hope
this helps.

__

I've made some 3-d graphs in Sigma Plot.  They were simple to make easy
to
rotate for getting the best perspective.  Sigma plot will even do some
interpolation from point to point if needed.  I know that SAS (proc
graph)
has 3-d capabilities, and you can visually rotate it but I've never done
graphing in SAS.  For another project we created 3-d graphs in ARC-VIEW
also.

__

Matlab will do it for you. You can probably get a student version which
will suffice for about $100 at most.

Once you learn the package you'll use it everyday, at least I do!

__

 JMP, a statistics program developed by SAS (now for both mac and
windows), will do this, using xyz coordinates. You can spin it any way
you
want, and I have printed out such 3d plots, However, I am not impressed
enough to encourage you to go out and buy the program just for this
reason.
(But the rest of JMP is great). If you can find someone who's got the
program, then definitely it would be worth checking it out.
  After giving it a try: You can ask it to connect all your points to
the
origin with lines, and you can also put a box around the whole plot that
spins with the axes and points. You can also zoom in or out.

__

You ought to examine S-Plus, by Statsci, now a subsidiary of
Mathsoft.  http://www.mathsoft.com.

__

if you have excel, try the table wizard.  it has an option for
graphing points as a three dimensional surface.

__


S-Plus 4.x  will do exactly what you need.  I know its a big package
just
for 3D graphs, perhaps your institution owns a copy.  The new windows
versions of SPlus are easy to use, but very memory-hungry.  Good luck.

__

Splus (www.mathsoft.com) has a "spin" option for 3D plots that should do
what you want.  It also will plot x-y-z with lines from z down to x-y
plane.  Text labesl for plots are a bit flaky, and the price may be a
bit
high (ca. $500 academic pricing).

__

ferret will certainly do it but you might have to learn the
command line syntax. Although the gui version may be up to the
task.
http://ferret.wrc.noaa.gov/Ferret/

Also check out the live access server:
http://ferret.wrc.noaa.gov/Ferret/LAS/ferret_LAS.html
though this is not installed in an hour.

For some fun with 3-d follow the link
http://ferret.wrc.noaa.gov/las-bin/LiveAccess
and select VRML globe under output and click get data.

Oh, this is unix/linux software - and you need to install and
compile it.... You can have ferret up and running in about an hour,
if you sort of know, what you are doing with make and compilers.
But the best there really is


There is also a list of software which uses netcdf
http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf/software.html
which contains a lot of plotting software packages.

I tried LinkWinds and it looks really cool, but I never really
put my own data in there.

matlab will do what you want as well - you can get a Student
version for $50-100 or so. It is somewhat limitied be really
worth it to toy around and do all kinds of not too complicated
stuff.
__

have you tried systat?  it can graph points in 3 dimensions, and allows
you to rotate the axis in each dimension.
 it also allows you to graph the surface of a plane, which gives you
lines extending to intercepts.

__

Take a look at SPSS v.9 and/or SigmaPlot.  Both have the capabilities
     for which I believe you're looking.

__

Are you familiar with SigmaPlot graphing software?  It has several
options
for creating 3D graphs and X-Y-Z data sets are fine.
__

I have viewed multidimensional datasets on SAS, Sigmaplot, and SPSS.
S-plus is
an incredible package for exploratory data analysis. You should have
access to
one of these tools. I know that SAS and S-plus both have the ability to
rotate
the data in three dimensions in real time. I am not sure of sigmaplot
and SPSS.

__

Use Sigma Plot v5.0.  You can plot your equations or data via xyz plots.
Download the demo version from SPSS web site and see if it fits your
needs.
Student price is $500.00.

__

I know SPSS(version 8 i think) does this

__


    Thanks again to everyone.

    Fear me, data points!  I am Informed!  Huzzah!