August 13th, 2010 | 7 Comments
In Gnuplot it is easy to define a continuous and differentiable function such as f(x) = x
, but what to do if we need a function that fulfill non of these conditions?
For example let us consider a step function. Typically a step function is given by
/ 1 if x > a step(x) = -| \ 0 else
In Gnuplot this can be achieved by using the ternary operator:
step(x) = x>a ? 1 : 0
Which is a simple if-else statement and means step(x)=1 if x>a else step(x)=0
.
If we plot this function we get Fig. 1.
As you can see this will result in a continuous plot. If we want a discontinuity in the plot, we have to create two separate functions that are only piecewise defined. This can be achieved by using 1/0
that will result in a undefined value.
f(x) = x<a ? 1 : 1/0 g(x) = x>=a ? 1 : 1/0
Plotting both functions will result in Fig. 2.
The ternary operator can also be used in an iterative way. For example if we want to define a rectangular function that is given by
/ 0 if abs(x) > 0.5 rect(x) = -| 0.5 if abs(x) = 0.5 \ 1 if abs(x) < 0.5
we can use the following statement in Gnuplot to define it:
rect(x) = abs(x)>0.5 ? 0 : abs(x)<0.5 ? 1 : 0.5
In Fig. 3 you can see a plot of this function. To produce the sharp edges of the rectangular function we use a higher number of sampling points (also in Fig. 1 for the step function). In order to plot a function Gnuplot calculates 100 points of the given function and draw a line through them. This can be set to another value with the set samples <value>
command.
Very helpful!!!
Thanks ;)
Very helpful indeed, thank you very much!
Very useful! :)
Is it possible to use these discontinuous functions in ‘fit’- I can’t seem to get it work myself.
What is not so easy is to get the range values of the different parts of the step functions, but the actual y values worked well for me.
For example, for step_data.txt try:
Thanks SO much! I have been looking everywhere for a way of plotting a “discontinuous” step function as above. How very nice to find one :-)
Many thanks!
Very useful! Thanks