EpsTk stands for "Encapsulated PostSript Toolkit". The codebase consists of pure M-files (Octave

GNU Octave

GNU Octave is a high-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations. It provides a convenient command-line interface for solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically, and for performing other numerical experiments using a language that is mostly compatible with MATLAB...

 or MATLAB

MATLAB

MATLAB is a numerical computing environment and fourth-generation programming language. Developed by MathWorks, MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementation of algorithms, creation of user interfaces, and interfacing with programs written in other languages,...

 script files), which may be used to create most standard 2D scientific graphics (line charts, bar charts, polar plots, contour plots, etc.). The M-files write EPS

Encapsulated PostScript

Encapsulated PostScript, or EPS, is a DSC-conforming PostScript document with additional restrictions which is intended to be usable as a graphics file format...

 files.

History

The Toolkit was created in 1997 by Stefan Müller of FGAN-FHR (a German research institute) who needed graphical output functions that could run on both Octave

GNU Octave

GNU Octave is a high-level language, primarily intended for numerical computations. It provides a convenient command-line interface for solving linear and nonlinear problems numerically, and for performing other numerical experiments using a language that is mostly compatible with MATLAB...

 and Matlab

MATLAB

MATLAB is a numerical computing environment and fourth-generation programming language. Developed by MathWorks, MATLAB allows matrix manipulations, plotting of functions and data, implementation of algorithms, creation of user interfaces, and interfacing with programs written in other languages,...

. He released his kit under the GPL

GNU General Public License

The GNU General Public License is the most widely used free software license, originally written by Richard Stallman for the GNU Project....

.
In 1999, EpsTk became a part of Debian

Debian

Debian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...

 distributions.

Features

EpsTk creates many scientific graphics with plots, bitmaps and text. Also, you can import other graphic sources in form of a bitmap or an EPS-file. The following is the third (of eighteen in version 2.2) demo image.

See also

• List of graphing software
• gnuplot
  Gnuplot
  - License :Despite gnuplot's name, it is not part of or related to the GNU system and it is not distributed under the GNU General Public License .However, some GNU packages do use gnuplot....
  
  
• grace (plotting tool)
  Grace (plotting tool)
  Grace is a free WYSIWYG 2D graph plotting tool, for Unix-like operating systems. The package name stands for "GRaphing, Advanced Computation and Exploration of data." Grace uses the X Window System and Motif for its GUI. It has been ported to VMS, OS/2, and Windows 9*/NT/2000/XP...
  
  
• kst (software)
• LabPlot
  LabPlot
  LabPlot is a platform-independent open-source cross-platform computer program for interactive scientific graphing and data analysis, written for the KDE desktop. It is similar to Origin and is able to import Origin's data files.-History and Perspective:...
  
  
• Ploticus
  Ploticus
  Ploticus is a free, open source program for producing plots and charts from data. It runs under Unix, Solaris, Mac OS X, Linux, and Win32 systems. Community support is customarily done through Yahoo News Groups...