Feature requests - general topic

[MagicPlot]

Please post feature requests here.

This topic is a replacement of the old one:
https://magicplot.com/cgi-bin/forum/Bla ... 986/s-all/

[Lautibah]

Hello!

I think it would be awesome to have an option that paints your plot with some gradient colors. I have to do it by hand now, if e.g. I want a rainbow looking, I decide a maximum and minimum shade, divide maximum-minimum by the amount of lines I've got and then, generate each color. The same for a black-grey gradient.

Did I explained it correctly?

Thanks!

[MagicPlot]

Hi!
So, you have multiple curves on plot and want to 'distribute' colors according some rule, right? Looks like a good feature, thank you for submitting.

[Lautibah]

Hello.

Correct, you can find attached some examples. As you may see in my data that I normally need plenty curves at the same time, they show a tendency when changing temperature, etc. This feature is interesting to be used on the ugly plot to make it fancier and obvious to follow (by the color), as the other plot attached.

By the way (might be a bug): When saving a .mppz file after applying "collapse all" feature, after opening the file again all folders will be slightly expanded.


Thanks!

[MagicPlot]

Got it, thank you! Nice pictures

We'll check and fix the 'collapse all'.

[Lautibah]

I was talking to my boss and we concluded the same:

1) For us, the "processing > smooth" magic plot feature is interesting not to smooth but to convert figures: We use Savitzky-Golay method and 3 windows points. That way, the points in the plot won't be changed and we can use that function to convert each curve in a plot (infinite amounts of curves) into FIT PLOT figures with a single click. Maybe that's not too obvious for the rest of the people so I propose that there should exist a button that does that job: "Proccessing > convert to fit plot". I have shown you my curves, there are plenty of curves there, just with a click (using the smooth function with a method that does not change the points) I convert all of those into 10251029515081 fit plots. I find that useful.

2) There are templates for keeping the style of plots and changing it with a single click... I love that.
Might it be possible to have the same with "functions"? Let's see, "80%" of my work during my PhD (to treat data) is almost the same with different experimental data. Before reaching the treatment of data I must create almost 50 folders, array them, import batch the files (plenty of them), plot them (with the batch is ok), convert to fit plot (the way I told on point 1), and then I am ready to treat my data (that where the differences start among different magic plot files).


Some of these functions might sound too much personalized for the kind of job I do. I try to request whatever feature I think that might be useful also with other magic plot users. I could be wrong and I am the only person (and my laboratory mates) that work this way, but magicplot is a really powerful program for data treatment and for that reason I think those kind of automatic functions work like a charm

[MagicPlot]

Hello Lautibah, thank you again for your suggestions!

1) There is "Create Fit Plot(s)" menu item in context menu for curves on Figure! It is also active if multiple curves are selected, just right click on any curve point. Maybe we need to add a copy of this context menu item to the main menu to make it easier to find.

2) I think I don't understand in details your workflow. Can you create one Fit Plot and then create a copies of it with the new data using Batch Processing? What do you exactly mean by "function" as a preset? The fit function equation?

[Lautibah]

1) That's true. I did not know that feature. I always tried to create a fit plot by opening the plot and then "create fit plot" but it was always unable. We did not try to select the curves and then check if the feature worked (we thought it was only available if you tried to create the fit plot from a table)


2) Uhm... nevermind. I have given this a second thought and is not that as much useful as I first thought.


Now, by giving this a second thought, I have concluded two things:
1) Is there a way to use the batch processing without importing a table? It would be cool to select already imported tables > batch processing. Because sometimes I import the tables, add a new column with the same function to each one, and by then I want to do the batch processing.

2) Another possible cool feature might be exporting fit reports. I normally export the data by hand into Mathematica. When you have a sum of curves (fit sum) it is difficult (or I just don't know how) to derivate the function to get its maxima and minima. I can derivate the experimental data with magic plot but no true values of maxima or minima can be obtained easily.


Sorry if this is so much crazyness.

Thank you!

[MagicPlot]

1) Yes, batch processing of existing tables (without import) will be certainly implemented.

2) Yes, there's no function to find maximum and minimum of a fit sum function. The whole formula is available in 'Report' tab. You can also use Export curves as table (in menu Tools) and find maximum from the table, but it will not be accurate.

[Lautibah]

2) Okay, I find that cool. Atleast is more accurate than doing it freehand if the number of points is high. Afterwards, new column > cmax() > boom, a really good aproximation of the maximum is obtained (batch processor and booooom, for every fit plot). This must be faster than exporting the Report tab to Mathematica by hand.
The thing... I have understood that, on "fit curves export", if I set it to manual X > 10^5 points I should get a table with 10^5 divisions from X = X0 to X = X1 and the corresponding values of Y (from the fit formula) to each division of X. Nevertheless (as MagicPlot is now), on the new created table there won't be 10^5 rows, just the same number of rows as the initial table.
I think that if N points > Initial data points, there should be added more rows to the table until reaching N points.

PS: By the way, I had nooo clue about this feature at all

[MagicPlot]

Thank you, confirmed as a bug. The correct rows number is available only if all checkboxes in Data area are unset. We'll fix it.

[Lautibah]

I am sorry for beeing too much demanding, but as developers you will think what is better or not for the program. This might not be useful or is just too unoptimized (obviously the best is: do the formula derivative , equal it to 0, after solve. I think this is too expensive and requires expert software, that's one reason is not implemented on magicplot)
I've exported the fit curve to a table with 10^5 points (unchecking the checkboxes) (by the way, the Add to project into > only new folder option is available). After exporting the table, I've calculated in a new column the cmax() for Y (this gives us the Y component of the maximum) and after, on a new column I have added the formula if(col(Y) == cmax(Y), col(X),0), after another column and cmax() (this gives us X component of the maximum). This gave me a pretty good aproximation of the maximum (depending on the number of points the precision is greater).

I was thinking on what you could do. I think I am not that wrong when I think that the maximas and minimas should appear within the fit plot interval. Then, using simple tools as solving the fit formula for multiples X values (number of points), cmax() and iterations, an aproximation might be possible.
I don't know, I thought that "scanning" the morphology of the fit formula with 1000 points, getting a maximum there with cmax (relative maximas won't be detected with cmax), now scanning the formula with 10000 points closeby the previous maximum value and finally, scanning it with 10^n points should give us a really small error on the maxima coordinates). The aproximation could be given in the Report tab because is not an exact value. I might not be that wrong in my thinking... I just don't know.

I know is not that easy, you'd had programmed that feature years ago. It could exist a plot whose maxima width is smaller than the X interval on the scanning:
- One solution for that is do the first scan of the morphology with a number of points > the smallest interval within experimental data. It is not that simple as (Xmax-Xmin)/rows, because the interval between experimental points might not be constant. So through performing a "for loop", the smallest interval between experimental points should be obtained. Then, the number of points for the scan must be greater or much greater than that. "Only by this way" a true maximum might be obtained.
- Other solution for that is cmax() the experimetal points and scanning through those, but it could also be that that experimental point is an error on the measure and casually is the maximum point.

The best is give by hand a relative precise X range in which the maxima is contained, afterwards do "all this".

[MagicPlot]

OK, I have added a feature request ticket for finding maximum/minimum of the fit curve, it seems to be a reasonable feature. I cannot say now when it can be implemented.

[Lautibah]

Paste columns with formula?
I have been looking for this feature for ages but I have never thought of proposing it.

[MagicPlot]

That's an interesting idea, thank you!

[Lautibah]

This is going to be hard to implement (maybe), but sometimes I find myself adding a fit sum + experimental points to a figure.
What do you think about doing an easy import? For example, if you create a new figure and drag+drop multiple tables onto the figure, you will be asked "what do you want to import" for each table, all at once.
Could be it done also for the fit plot? For example: creating a figure, drag and drop multiple fit plots, asked to add experimental points + fit sum.

There are probably other priorities on the list but that's fine

It is something that I would also take profit of (I find it useful for me). I am preparing to write my thesis for next year, so I might come with more other crazy/whatever ideas