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Last updated 11/14/07 (Aabel). See our related pages on:
Key: "Universal" works on Intel-based Macs and PowerPC based Macs with OSX. PPC works on PowerPC based Macs (last made in 2006). Intel works on Intel-based Macs (all currently made models). Some PPC programs do work on Intel machines.
Configurations: OS X native; Altivec and non-Altivec versions, Universal ; Leopard
Current version: 2.4
Cost: $445 (educational, $345; upgrades, $195; volume discounts.)
Listing updated: 11/2007
The trial loads Excel files nicely, preserving variable names, but it is rather restrictive. The learning curve is steep; operations are conducted in pipelines, making the basic menus sparse with large modal dialogue boxes in which the real work is done. There appears to be no programming language for Aabel, which makes it more suitable for casual and exploratory work. Click here for the vendor site (Gigawiz).
On Macintouch.com, Andrew Fiore praised Aabel’s visualizations, and Robin Lake noted its ability to handle a large number of variables and its strong regression tools. Arthur Busbey wrote "this is the envy of more than one Windows person I have showed it to. It has some great niche graphics for the earth sciences that you can't easily get anywhere else." If you have a lot of data to plot, or repeated graphs of the same kind to draw, it's not very flexible. e.g. if you want to plot graphs with a large number of lines (something I do often) I have to go through and set colour of each line individually.
Dr. Jake Bundy wrote, “It is powerful and useful as a graph-drawing package, but it's not really a stats package. (Surprisingly useful for multivariate analysis, but with some severe annoyances, e.g. writes all the data to new worksheets, meaning they are no longer connected.) The best feature is the popup window next to the graph sheet listing the variables in the worksheet. If you are interested in hunting for correlations (say), it makes it easy to set var1 as your X, and then use the arrow key to flick rapidly between var2 -> var3 ... -> varN, and watch the plots change.”
Version 2.2 adds 2 map trend analysis, new cartographic projection methods, and other features. Version 2.3 adds user-defined multipliers for scientific notations, better worksheet operations, new preferences and date handling, new chart features, and many bug fixes. Version 2.4 adds Leopard compatibility, faster Quartz drawing and window operations, and statistics plugins modules through a new plugin SDK.
Configurations: OS X (10.3 minimum; older versions in OS 7-9); PPC
Current Version: Not provided
Pricing: Not provided; quotes may be requested, which is never a good sign
The Cartographer (also known as Cartes & Données) is a “geo-statistical” analysis package available in French and English from Articque.The free download is a limited-function version of the commercial products, which include Cartes & Données Premium and Cartes & Données Plus.
Configurations: Universal
Current Version: 1.30
Listing added: 8/21/06
Designed for OS X, ChartSmith is not burdened with cross-platform baggage and uncertainty á la DeltaGraph, but otherwise performs many of the same functions - making charts and graphs for publication and providing loads of analytical features. It allows Excel importing and PowerPoint and Charts exporting. Graphics are snazzy with AppleTalk controls. We wanted to like it, we really did, but we found the interface awkward and unnecessarily driven by OS X ideals, and the program itself buggy.
Configurations: Universal
Current Version: 1.1
Price: $120
Listing updated: 3/2007
Citrin does interactive scientific graphing and curve fitting, providing charts, such as scatter and line series, bar, column, area, 3-D, ternary scatter, pie, polar, box and whisker, histograms, probability charts, etc.; curve fitting with built-in functions, as well as a module for user-defined, non-linear curve fitting with an interactive graphical interface; flexible capabilities for applying error bars; full Unicode support, diverse graphic export formats; and native worksheets that can import and store large data sets from diverse data formats. It allows Excel and other imports and PDF, Photoshop, and other exports. Citrin also provides real-time, two-way interaction between charts and their source worksheets, and claims to be the first relatively low-cost commercial program to allow data brushing to highlight data interrelationships. Version 1.1 adds a number of tools for flexibility and bug fixes.
OS X (PPC)
$595 academic/government, $1,195 “normal.” Free trial.
Includes two years of support and updates. Listing updated 8/2/05.
Can be programmed. Winner of the 2005 Apple Design Award for Best Scientific Computing Solution. From the developers’ web site:
DataTank is designed for scientific visualization, data mining, and algorithm development, but it is flexible enough to be used for a variety of other uses as well. Like other scientific visualization programs DataTank uses OpenGL to draw 3D graphics, and supports transparency, interactive rotation, multiple light sources and camera positions. DataTank uses the strength of Quartz to generate publication quality vector-graphics as PDF/EPS or anti-aliased bitmaps for use in web pages and presentations. ... DataTank enables interactive exploration of large data sets. ... DataTank will perform incremental evaluation, treating data sets with millions of data points and hundreds of thousands of entries the same way as a simple data set that is typed in manually.
Dennis Kahlbaum wrote: “Excellent support. Program is extremely flexible and can be used for graphics, statistics, visualizations, etc; Can produce animations of contours (lines and shading) generated from variably spaced data. Can use ESRI shapfiles.”
Configurations: 68030 or later, OS 7-9 (older versions); OS X; Universal
Current Version: 5.7
Listing updated: 6-6-06
DeltaGraph is a dual-platform charting program developed on the Mac, then sold to SPSS, Inc., which proceeded to make a Windows version and pump the price up by a huge amount before selling it back to Red Rock Software. The most advanced charting software when first introduced, albeit not the easiest to use (Cricket Graph 1.32 had that charm), DeltaGraph at least has Mac/Windows feature parity now and does offer some statistical features along with advanced graphing that makes Excel look even clunkier than it is. DeltaGraph has some surprising statistical abilities including linear and nonlinear regression. While KaleidaGraph is more Mac focused, DeltaGraph became a Universal Binary far faster. Also see Chartsmith and Citrin.
Configurations: UNIX, OS X; since you compile it, Universal
Current version: 4.13
Listing updated: 6-6-06
A collection of command-line tools that run on all Unix-like systems, including Mac OS X. See gmt.soest.hawaii.edu for details. Many of the main developers (including me) use Mac OS X. (Description by Paul Wessel)
Configurations: OS 7-9, PowerPC depending on version
Price: Comes with MacOS
This software was made available free of charge by Apple with the first PowerPC systems to show off the awesome power of the 60 MHz PowerPC 601 chips (which in some ways were quite speedy, but most people probably found themselves wishing for a Quadra). They have continued on, in various forms, through to OS X, and can actually do a number of useful things. Steve Martin of the University of Melbourne suggested its inclusion, noting that the new verison of Grapher allows importing sets of points and includes sample files. This only works for graphing functions.
Configurations: Universal Binary
Price: Shareware, $10 educational / $30 standard
Listing updated: 8-22-07
An amazingly quick and easy to use program for drawing instant, readable scatterplots and for drawing graphs by hand (without data). Written by Robin Stewart (graphsketcher.com).
Configurations: OS 9, OS X (PPC only), Windows
Price: $80
Listing updated: 8-21-06
From Vernier Solutions, Graphical Analysis is, like DeltaGraph and KaleidaGraph, a program to create charts and graphs for presentation. Like DeltaGraph and KaleidaGraph, it lets you “create and print graphs, data tables, text, FFTs, and histograms.
Perform automatic curve fits, and add models with adjustable parameters to your graphs.
Calculate statistics, tangents, integrals, and interpolations.” But unlike its more popular (on the Mac, anyway) brethren, Graphical Analysis does not seem to be getting updates.
Configurations: PPC
Current Version: 1.13
Listing updated: 6-6-06
Graphviz is the AT&T open source drawing package. The Mac OS X version and the overall project have their own web sites. The OS X version now uses the Aqua user interface. Prepare for a steep learning curve but it may be worth it if you have graphs you do frequently; not what I'd suggest for the occasional one-off though.
Configurations: PPC
Current Version: 4.1
Price: free
gnuplot is the Mac version of the open source scientific plotting software. It is available online from many sources.
Configurations: 68020, with or without FPU; Universal Binary
$400 academic, $550 normal
Current Version: 6.0
Listing updated: 1-28-07
Igor Pro is a charting and data analysis program published by WaveMetrics, Inc. “IGOR Pro is an interactive software environment for experimentation with scientific and engineering data and for the production of publication-quality graphs and page layouts.” IGOR's data files are cross-platform. Analysis includes curve fitting, peak analysis, signal processing, and descriptive statistics. As of version 6, Igor Pro is a Universal Binary, and expanded statistics are available, along with built in FIR and IIR filtering.
A highly capable data visualization and discovery package covered more completely on the main page.
Configurations: 68000 with/without FPU (older versions); PPC
Current Version: 4.0
Price: $200 (academic $140); crossgrades $60
Listing updated: 1-28-07
Kaleidagraph is a (dual-platform) data analysis and graphing application published by Synergy Software. A demo version is available. Kaleidagaph's promotional materials promise essentially everything offered by DeltaGraph and then some.
Melvyn Halbert wrote: "I have used Kaleidagraph 3.5 and earlier versions to tabulate, normalize, and combine data sets as well as to make numerical calculations of theoretical expressions for comparisons with the measured data points, and always found it up to the task. I made publication-quality graphs of experimental and theoretical data with little effort and was always pleased with its results. Please understand, however, that (1) I have no experience with Kaleidagraph, or its performance under Mac OS X, and (2) I never tried other programs such as DeltaGraph or Cricket Graph."
James P. Conner wrote, "KaleidaGraph can handle 1,000 columns and one million rows, and thus work with large data sets, while Delta Graph is (last time I looked) limited to 256 columns and 32K rows. Also, K-Graph's statistical functions have been expanded significantly in the last two releases, and are much more useful than D-Graph's." We’ll also note that it’s cheaper.
Synergy says 4.03 works fine on Rosetta but Prof. Mark Warner says it crashes his MacBook Pro frequently. It may not have been tested for accuracy under Rosetta.
Free - open source - for Mac OS X
Currently in beta
Report updated: 5/15/07
Matplotlib is a pure python plotting library with the goal of making publication quality plots using a syntax familiar to matlab users. The library uses Numeric for handling large data sets and supports a variety of output backends
Configurations: PowerPC, OS X; supports Spotlight; Universal as of 6.1
Current Version: 6.1
Price: $95
Report updated: 5/15/07
pro Fit is a data analysis and plotting software package from QuantumSoft. Dave [not me] wrote: "...it has an extensive Applescript dictionary, ability to handle large data sets well (I've done graphs with hundreds of thousands of points), can be extended by writing plug ins or adding formulas that you create, does great curve fitting. I consider it much more feature complete than Kaliedagraph and far more intuitive than Igor Pro. They have excellent customer support, usually getting back to you within 24 hours if you have a bug report or feature request." We have observed that ProFit is frequently updated which indicates it is well supported (11/05).
“pro Fit is a Macintosh (Mac OS) application for data/function analysis, plotting, and curve fitting. It is used by scientists and engineers to analyze their measurements and the mathematical models they use to describe them. Scientists or students can define any mathematical function and use it to model their data, finding by linear or nonlinear curve fitting the function parameters that best describe their observations. Moreover, they can use a number of tools for the mathematical and statistical analysis of functions and data sets, and they can produce aesthetically pleasing graphical representations for their scientific reports.”
Version 6.1 changes: now Universal Binary; new tool for multidimensional curve fitting; revamped rendering engine for plots with native Core Graphics, PDF, and PostScript support; additions to the scripting language; more.
For Linux and Windows but may be compiled on Macs
SciPy is a library of scientific tools for Python which supplements the Numeric module. SciPy includes modules for graphics and plotting, optimization, integration, special functions, signal and image processing, genetic algorithms, ODE solvers, and others.
Pre-compiled only for Windows; may be compiled from source code for OS X
Latest version: 4.2 (listing updated 8/2005)
The Visualization ToolKit (VTK) is a system for 3D computer graphics, image processing, and visualization with several interface layers. In VTK applications can be written directly in C++, Tcl, Java, or Python.
VTK supports a wide variety of visualization algorithms including scalar, vector, tensor, texture, and volumetric methods; and advanced modeling techniques like implicit modelling, polygon reduction, mesh smoothing, cutting, contouring, and Delaunay triangulation. Moreover, we have directly integrated dozens of imaging algorithms into the system so you can mix 2D imaging / 3D graphics algorithms and data. Our goal is to make the software easy enough for any computer literate person to use.
Configurations: PPC
Current Version: 10.1.6 (10.2 coming soon)
Price: Free
Lance Bland, the developer, writes: "In addition to all the standard features, Vvidget includes advanced features such as floating ticks, curves that can extend beyond the graph frame or can be truncated and literally hundreds of tunable parameters. 3D types rotate in real time and even the graph labels can be rotated in their own plane, independent of the main graph rotation. Data can be inserted through a list of numbers or by point and click methods." The same developer also provides software such as QuadraticLab for other math functions. Click here to get it.
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Originally prepared by Joel West of the UCI Graduate School of Management. Copyright © 2000-2001 Joel West, Copyright © 2005-2008 Allpar, LLC. All rights reserved. Organizational change and organizational development articles ... Macintosh statistics software