Graphical tools

Fra Robin

Versjonen fra 1. jun 2021 kl. 09:23

Figures/Illustrations

• Vector Graphics Editors
  • Inkscape (free and open-source)
  • Adobe Illustrator (for students only through UiO programkiosk)
  • Directly in LaTeX (PGF/TikZ: https://github.com/pgf-tikz/pgf; some examples)
  • LibreOffice Draw (free and open-source)
  • Through presentation software such as Powerpoint, Keynote, …
  • Web-based options: Google draw (in Google disk), Draw.io, Figma, Lucid charts, …

• Raster Graphics Editors
  • Gimp (free and open-source)
  • Adobe Photoshop (for students only through UiO programkiosk)
  • Photopea (online editor)

• 3D Computer Graphics Editors
  • Blender (free and open-source)
  • Autodesk Maya

Plotting in

• Python
  • Matplotlib (see Mouret's tutorial for publication quality plots )
  • Seaborn (easy to create good looking plots, uses Matplotlib internally, see for example tutorial here)
  • Export to LaTeX (PGF/TikZ; https://github.com/nschloe/tikzplotlib)
• R
  • ggplot2 (with Rstudio)
  • Export to LaTeX (PGF/TikZ; https://github.com/daqana/tikzDevice)
• Matlab (available at uio)
  • Export to Latex (PGF/TikZ; https://github.com/matlab2tikz/matlab2tikz)
• Octave (free alternative to matlab)
  • Export to LaTeX (PGF/TikZ; https://github.com/matlab2tikz/matlab2tikz)
• Gnuplot (free)
• Desmos.com (web based)
• javaFX
• excel (uio)

Digitalize Figures

To qualitatively compare one's own data with other published data, it is sometimes needed to obtain the concrete data of the respective publication. In that case there are multiple ways to do that:

• Python: https://github.com/dilawar/PlotDigitizer
• Matlab: https://blogs.mathworks.com/steve/2013/12/31/automating-data-extraction-1/
• External App: WebPlotDigitizer

Tips for Exporting Figures

• Before saving the graphics in the respective programs
  • Check your colour maps! (see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19160-7 or https://matplotlib.org/stable/tutorials/colors/colormaps.html)
  • Check font size, font type and line widths!
  • Preferably use vector graphics such as svg, pdf or eps (can be edited with vector graphics editors)
  • Avoid bitmap graphics if possible and especially jpg!
• Sometimes it is neccessary to use png format (e.g. in case of render graphics or plots with an essential transparency effect)
  • In that case one should pick a proper resolution for the export file while accounting for its file size
  • Possible ways to compress the png file is to use for example pngquant, AdvanceCOMP or ImageMagick
• Exporting to LaTeX
  • Recommended approach:
    • export as pdf
    • optionally use pdfcrop to cut unecessary white space (usually installed with LaTeX)
    • in case only eps export is supported, use epstopdf (usually installed with LaTeX)
  • For direct inclusion in LaTeX use the scripts linked above to create PGF/TikZ files

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