This is the distribution for PLplot, a scientific plotting package.
PLplot is relatively small, portable, freely distributable, and is rich
enough to satisfy most users.  It has a wide range of plot types including
line (linear, log), contour, 3D, fill, and almost 1000 characters
(including Greek and mathematical) in its extended font set.  The package
is designed to make it easy to quickly get graphical output; only a
handful of function calls is typically required.  For more advanced use,
virtually all aspects of plotting are configurable.

The PLplot package is freely distributable, but NOT in the public domain.
The PLplot source code, except header files and those files explicitly
granting permission, may not be used in a commercial software package without
consent of the authors.  You are allowed and encouraged to include the PLplot
object library and header files in a commercial package provided that: (1) it
is explicitly and prominently stated that the PLplot library is freely
available, and (2) the full copyrights on the PLplot package be displayed
somewhere in the documentation for the package.

We welcome suggestions on how to improve this code, especially in the form of
user-contributed enhancements or bug fixes.  If PLplot is used in any
published papers, please include an acknowledgment or citation of our work,
which will help us to continue improving PLplot.  Also, please remember that
as PLplot is not a commercial product, we cannot be expected to offer the
kind of support that a commercial product may.  There is great interest
in extending PLplot and fixing bugs, but the principal authors can only
afford to work on it part time.  Improvements will necessarily focus on
those which help us get our work done.

PLplot is written in C, enabling it to run on many platforms practically
without modification.  Fortran programs may use it transparently; stub
routines are provided to handle the C<->Fortran interface without any
modification of the user program.  C programs are required to include the
header file "plplot.h"; see the documentation for more details.

The main documentation for PLplot is in the doc/ directory in the form of
several TeX files; please consult this for additional information ("latex
plotdoc").  Unfortunately documentation tends to lag actual improvements to
the code, so don't be surprised if some known features are not explained
there.  Consult "NEWS" to see a list of recent changes.  

At present, PLplot is known to work on the following systems:

	Unix:	AIX 		(IBM)
		ConvexOS	(Convex)
		DG/UX		(Data General)
		HP-UX		(Hewlett-Packard)
		IRIX		(Silicon Graphics)
		Linux		(various)
		OSF/1		(DEC)
		SunOS		(Sun)
		Super-UX	(NEC)
		SysV		(various)
		Ultrix		(DEC)
		Unicos		(Cray)

	Amiga/Exec
	MS-DOS
	OS/2
	NeXT

Many different output device drivers are available, including postscript,
tektronix, HP laserjet, HP pen plotters, XFig, xterm, X-windows, and a
portable metafile format, among others.  The TK driver under Unix/X
provides a full user interface, with facilities to zoom, pan, orient,
determine placement on the output page, and save the plot or any set of
plots to a specified file and device type.  The metafile renderer
(plrender) supports seeking backwards or forwards to any specified page
when interactively viewing metafile output.

For more information on how to get or use PLplot on your system, see:
 - appendices to the PLplot manual
 - system-specific documentation in the appropriate sys/<system> directory.

To become a subscriber to the PLplot mailing list, send a request to
plplot-request@dino.ph.utexas.edu.

PLplot is available by anonymous ftp from dino.ph.utexas.edu in the
plplot/ directory.


CREDITS
-------

PLplot is the result of the effort of many people, so it is impractical to
list all the contributors.  Those currently supporting and otherwise
responsible for the package in its present form include:

Dr. Maurice LeBrun		PLplot overall coordination, kernel
mjl@dino.ph.utexas.edu		development, most of the Unix and Amiga
Institute for Fusion Studies	drivers
University of Texas

Geoffrey Furnish		Co-developer.  Can help with C++ and UNIX
furnish@dino.ph.utexas.edu	related questions
Institute for Fusion Studies
University of Texas

Paul Casteels			DOS/BGI (bcc) port
casteels@uia.ac.be

John C. Peterson		OS/2 port 
jcp@trg.saic.com

Paul Kirschner			DOS/DJGPP port
pek@logos.res.utc.com

Mark Olesen			DOS/EMX port
olesen@weber.me.queensu.ca
