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Abstract : |
XGobi brings contemporary dynamic graphics for statistics to the workstation environment. Dynamic graphical methods offer a data analyst the power of motion, high interaction and rapid response for discovering and understanding higher-dimensional relationships among variables. For example, XGobi has provided insights within Bellcore to software engineers analyzing data on switch memory allocation and to market researchers studying telephone usage data. XGobi's plots are all variants of the scatterplot. These scatterplots can be singlevariable strip plots, pairwise plots, or linear combinations of three or more variables. The plots can be set in motion: three-variable rotation or higher dimensional rotation known as the grand tour. In addition, a method called the projection pursuit guided tour is provided for directing the tour toward interesting views of the data. The scatterplots can be transformed and manipulated in many ways. Groups of points can be distinguished with a method called brushing or identified with row labels, either in one window at a time or using two or more linked windows. A plot can be moved and reshaped, and variables can be transformed interactively. An on-line help system is available which contains most of the information in this manual. XGobi is implemented in the X Window System TM, so it is widely portable. It has been tested on workstations manufactured by both Sun Microsystems, Inc. and the Digital Equipment Corporation, and on some high-end personal computers as well. 1 XGobi is designed to be used as a complement to existing analytical tools. For example, one can use XGobi and the S data analysis environment simultaneously, making it possible to use each program's unique functions on the same data. This memo is an updated version of an XGobi user's manual that was issued in July,, |
