From: geep <geep@boursomail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.graphics.apps.gnuplot
Subject: Re: How to re-use the same output device/xterm each time gnuplot is invoked?
Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2011 15:09:49 +0000 (UTC)
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On Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:07:46 -0700, Nasser M. Abbasi wrote:

> Hello;
> 
> I am on linux, and I am very new to gnuplot, but I am trying to see if I
> can use it to make animation by calling it from Fortran program.
> 
> The setup is like this:
> 
> 
>    PROGRAM ----> gnuplot
> 
> Where the actual call inside the program follow this logic
> 
> LOOP
>     -- update data, create new data.txt file on disk  from this data
>     CALL system('gnuplot batch.plt')  -- call to make new plot
> END LOOP
> 
> and batch.plt would start as
> 
> #!/usr/bin/gnuplot -persist
> ... load data from data.txt  and make plot # EOF
> 
> The above works OK, but the problem is that each call makes a NEW xterm
> on top of the earlier one.
> 
> So if I run the loop for 10 time, I end up with 10 plots on 10 different
> windows. If I remove -persist, then each plot window disappear, and new
> one is created, etc... and one is not able to see the animation.
> 
> What I want is to reuse the same window, basically erase the previous
> plot (if any) on it, and make a new one on the same plot/window, to
> obtain the effect of animation.
> 
> But I am not sure how to do this. I need some kind of window ID/device
> ID, to tell gnuplot to reuse that when starting a new process, since
> each call to gnuplot from the program will create a new process.
> 
> So, basically I want the gnuplot script to do something like
> 
> --------------------
> IF window_ID allready exist, then send all output to it else create a
> new window and assign it window_ID make plot to window_ID
> ---------------------
> 
> Any ideas how to do this, or even if it possible?
> 
> thanks
> --Nasser

Hi,
I haven't tried it myself, but gnuplot can make animated gifs - take a 
looke here: http://www.gnuplot.info/faq/faq.html
Maybe it will be helpful.
Cheers,
Peter