Acquiring Plotc

• Unpacking
• Installing Plotc
• Building With User-Written COORS/POINTS Routines

Plotc is currently at Version 2.6, for use on Linux systems. A slightly earlier version (2.5) is available for SGI systems. Due to security enhancements in the ftp system at NASA Glenn, plotc is no longer available via anonymous ftp. Contact me directly at towne@nasa.gov to acquire the program.

Unpacking

The file plotc26.tar.gz is a compressed tar file, and must first be uncompressed and un-tar'ed by doing

   gunzip -c plotc26.tar.gz | tar xvf -

This will create a directory called plotc26 in your current directory. In the plotc26 directory will be the following files and subdirectories:

	main/		Source code for non-device-specific routines
	subsgl/		Source code for the OpenGL-specific routines
	subsps/		Source code for the PostScript-specific routines
	coors/		Source code for subroutines COORS and POINTS
	coorp3d/		Source code unique to plotc_p3d
	include/		Include files
	plotc.psprolog		Prolog for PostScript output
	plotc.sh		Basis for plotc, the shell script for running plotc
	plotc_p3d.sh		Basis for plotc_p3d, the shell script for running plotc_p3d
	plotc.1.trf		Nroff/troff source for plotc man page
	plotc.1		Formatted on-line plotc man page
	plotc.1.ps		PostScript version of plotc man page
	plotc_p3d.1.trf		Nroff/troff source for plotc_p3d man page
	plotc_p3d.1		Formatted on-line plotc_p3d man page
	plotc_p3d.1.ps		PostScript version of plotc_p3d man page
	plotc.namelist		Sample namelist input file for plotc
	Makefile		Makefile for building/installing plotc and plotc_p3d
	README		Introductory hype, unpacking and installation instructions, how to run sample input file, and change history
	doc/*.html		HTML version of the Plotc User's Manual. Point your browser to the index.html file.
	doc/manual.pdf		PDF version of the Plotc User's Manual
	doc/quick.ps		PostScript version of Plotc Quick Guide

Installing Plotc

Plotc has been successfully built on a Linux system using version 6.3.2 of the Mesa 3-D graphics library , which is, in effect, an OpenGL clone. This version of Mesa includes GLUT (OpenGL Utility Toolkit) version 3.7.1, which provides the interface routines to the windowing system. Version 1.2.10 of f90gl was used for the Fortran bindings to the GLUT and Mesa graphics routines. None of these are provided with plotc, and they (or their equivalents) must be pre-installed on your system in order to build the plotc executable. (Unless, that is, you're building a PostScript-only version of plotc, as described below.)

First, cd into the plotc26 subdirectory, and edit the Makefile.

• Check the definitions of DIR1, DIR4, and DIR5. These specify the directories to be used for storing various files, as described in the comments at the top of the file. They are set to directories commonly used at NASA Glenn, and assume you have root access. If you don't have root access, or if you'd rather store these files in other directories, change the definitions. The directory defined by DIR1 must be in your search path.
  
  
• Check the definitions of the pre-processor, compile, and load commands and flags, and the Fortran libraries. These currently assume Intel Fortran is being used.
  
  
• Check the definitions of the locations for the OpenGL, GLUT, and f90gl include (.h) and module (.mod) files, and the libraries.
  
  
• Check the definitions of the X11 libraries.
  
  
• If OpenGL, etc., aren't available on your system, plotc can still be built, but only the PostScript plot will be available. To do this, in the definition of OBJS, add the line

     main/dumgl.o \
  

  somewhere among the other object files in main, and delete all the subsgl/*.o lines.

Finally, if you're installing both plotc and plotc_p3d, do

   make install_p3d

   make install

When finished, the following new files and subdirectories will appear:

	main/*.o		Object code for non-device-specific routines
	subsgl/*.o		Object code for the OpenGL-specific routines
	subsps/*.o		Object code for the PostScript-specific routines
	coors/*.o		Object code for subroutines COORS and POINTS
	include/params.h		Include file containing Fortran parameters
	DIR1/plotc.ex		Executable for plotc
	DIR1/plotc		Shell script for running plotc.ex
	DIR4/plotc.psprolog		Prolog for PostScript output
	DIR5/plotc.1		Formatted on-line man page for plotc

where DIR1, DIR4, and DIR5 are the directories defined in the Makefile.

If plotc_p3d was also installed, the following additional files and subdirectories will appear:

	coorp3d/*.o		Object code unique to plotc_p3d
	DIR1/plotc_p3d.ex		Executable for plotc_p3d
	DIR1/plotc_p3d		Shell script for running plotc_p3d.ex
	DIR5/plotc_p3d.1		Formatted on-line man page for plotc_p3d

Building With User-Written COORS/POINTS Routines

As noted earlier, user-written COORS and/or POINTS routines may be used to create specialized versions of plotc. To build a plotc executable with a user-written COORS and/or POINTS routine, after unpacking the compressed tar file, in the coors subdirectory simply replace the files coors.f90 and/or points.f90 with your own versions. Then follow the instructions above to install your specialized version of plotc.

Note that the subroutine names (COORS and POINTS) and the file names (coors.f90 and points.f90) for your user-written versions must be the same as for the original supplied versions. You should therefore copy the original versions to a different name and/or location, in case you need to later re-build plotc using those routines.