Hello,
question from a PDL beginner:

which 2D Graphics module should i use?

I know, this is Perl, "there are several ways to do it", and maybe i
should read the doc and try them all. But there are many, and i found
contradictory information online even though it all seems to be recent
and "official" information from the developers team. Maybe this can be
clarified.

In this recent and apparently "official" blog post
http://blogs.perl.org/users/joel_berger/2013/03/pdl-2006-released.html
these three are mentionned:
 - PDL::Graphics::Gnuplot
 - PDL::Graphics::Prima
 - PDL::Graphics::Simple
It seems that the last one is best to use, as it "uses many of the
existing PDL graphics modules with a uniform syntax".
And if it doesn’t do some of the things that i need, i should then
look at the other ones. Is that right?

But i am still confused, because in the PDL documentation here
http://pdl.perl.org/?docs=Modules&title=PDL::Modules#graphics
the only two Graphical modules that are indicated are
 - PDL::Graphics::PGPLOT
 - PDL::Graphics::PLplot
which are also the ones presented in the PDL Book.

Is any of these two sources of information more up to date than the
other one, or is it just that the 5 modules should be mentioned in
both places? (this blog and the documentation) In which case it would
be very helpful for beginners to have a short
summary/comparison/review that would indicate what each can do or
cannot.
...Or, that would just say that they do exactly the same thing, so
just use you the first you manage to install - if this was the case.

And then i also just found PDL::Graphics2D, whose documentation says
“This is an umbrella class allowing for a simple interface to all
plotting routines in PDL”. This sounds very similar to what
PDL::Graphics::Simple is meant to do. But it also says: “This requires
a lot more work before it is useful I feel, but it can be used
already”. And indeed, it only has one function at the moment. But it
is presented in the PDL Book, even though it does not figure in its
summary.
So, that would be 6 modules to compare.

This is not meant to be a negative message: i am only seeking for
clarification on where to best start with plots.
And the answer, if it is compiled and displayed somewhere, might help
some other beginners too. If i get a clear picture from people's
answers, I will write a summary that can be used on the website.

Cheers for any insight on this :-)
Pierre


PS: Something else: it would be very helpful to add in the PDL Book’s
summary, the page number where each chapter can be found.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~~
I initially posted this message in this blog:
http://blogs.perl.org/users/joel_berger/2013/03/pdl-2006-released.html#comment-442449
and thought today that it would be best to share it with more PDL
users over the mailing list.

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