Re: How to plot arrays as pictures

ptc-6160868 · ‎Jun 10, 2014

I have been using mathcad for many years, its been my go to software to help me think and sort out problems. Very recently I moved to Mathcad prime 3. I am unbelievably dissapointed. Yes it looks pretty , but its so hard to do anything. I wanted to display arrays as a picture , as I have done for many years. You cant do this. You have to save the data to a file, then read in the file in to a picture which has browsed a filename. then it does not update when you change the data in the file. Its awful and unusable in this application. I have had to revert to a pre prime version as this actually does what I need it to do. I cant believe we are on prime 3 and this is not sorted out.

Help doesn't work either. Prime really is a backward step and I would not recommend it to anyone - are you listening PTC. I have colleagues who feel exactly the same.

If anyone can suggest how to view 2D arrays as pictures in a usable way I would like to find out.

MikeArmstrong · ‎Jun 10, 2014

Not that I know off. I'm afraid you will have to revert back to Mathcad 15.

Werner_E · ‎Jun 10, 2014

Help doesn't work either.

I agree that Prime is useless and cannot be recommended, but what do you mean that the help doesn't work? It does - it may not be that helpful as you are used from MC15 and below and its more cumbersome to use, but that seems to be the "Prime touch" as thats the case with the rest of Prime, too. Maybe you were not patient enough? Prime help comes up when you press F1, but it will take its time - its slow like the rest of the software.

If anyone can suggest how to view 2D arrays as pictures in a usable way I would like to find out.

Unfortunately, no. Its ridiculous - all the functions from the Image processing pack are implemented, but we are not allowed to see the effect of the manipulations in Prime itself.

StuartBruff · ‎Aug 26, 2015

Werner Exinger wrote:

Help doesn't work either.

I agree that Prime is useless and cannot be recommended, but what do you mean that the help doesn't work? It does - it may not be that helpful as you are used from MC15 and below and its more cumbersome to use, but that seems to be the "Prime touch" as thats the case with the rest of Prime, too. Maybe you were not patient enough? Prime help comes up when you press F1, but it will take its time - its slow like the rest of the software.

Prime 3.1 Help is one of things that I actually prefer. It performs adequately on my PC (Win 10, Intel i7, 8 GiB RAM) and it's a definite improvement being able to copy from Help to a worksheet.

Stuart

JFPittet · ‎Jul 04, 2014

Hello,

I recompile a user DLL for Prime 3.0 with MSVisual Studio 2010 in 64bit mode.

I write different functions for data processing (rms, read wavefront data, Zernike, Zernike-fit, ...).

One of the function is the "coloring" of a data-matrix in a specific palette.

In Mathcad from version 7 to version 15, it was easy to see the colored image of the data-matrix.

Insert an image region with "Strg+T" and copy the result of my user-function ... finished !

In Prime 3.0 ... it is more complicated ...

Save the result of my user-function in a BMP file, insert an image region with now "Strg+4" (!?), click on the box, select the picture, click OK.

But the worse is coming now ... no automatic image update is done, if data is change.

Means: delete the image, insert an image region, click on the box, select the picture, click OK (rescale the image) ... the same procedure for each change of each image ???

I have a lot of file with up to 30 different images (for wavefront error analysis, see an example in the PDF).

The actual version is really not possible to use.

PTC ... CHANGE THAT IMMEDIATELLY FOR THE PRIME 4.0 ...

THE IMAGE MUST BE UPDATED AUTOMATICALLY !!!

The actual version of the "insert image" is OK only for static images.

Please add a new "image" with the interactive possibility to update it (remember, that is the first use of Mathcad/Prime).

Regards,

Jean-Francois

StuartBruff · ‎Aug 26, 2015

Jean-Francois Pittet wrote:

In Mathcad from version 7 to version 15, it was easy to see the colored image of the data-matrix.

Insert an image region with "Strg+T" and copy the result of my user-function ... finished !

In Prime 3.0 ... it is more complicated ...

Save the result of my user-function in a BMP file, insert an image region with now "Strg+4" (!?), click on the box, select the picture, click OK.

Agreed, this is real pain for worksheets with multiple images. At the very least, the File Conversion application should create images and load them in automatically. I find it difficult to believe to PTC couldn't have implemented an equivalent of the M15- Image component or that it still doesn't have one after so many iterations.

But the worse is coming now ...

I hope you're joking ...

... no automatic image update is done, if data is change.

Means: delete the image, insert an image region, click on the box, select the picture, click OK (rescale the image) ... the same procedure for each change of each image ???

I have a lot of file with up to 30 different images (for wavefront error analysis, see an example in the PDF).

The actual version is really not possible to use.

PTC ... CHANGE THAT IMMEDIATELLY FOR THE PRIME 4.0 ...

THE IMAGE MUST BE UPDATED AUTOMATICALLY !!!

No. You weren't joking. This is abysmal and clearly unacceptable for any kind of image processing worksheet. I'm even more astounded such a deficiency has not been corrected. Apart from the work involved in updating worksheets, it is dangerous as a user may not always pick up on this for small (yet important changes).

I haven't paid much attention to Prime until now, as the poor execution performance and M15-relative limitations have made it pretty pointless doing so. However, Prime 3.1 appears to perform better (for small worksheets, still bad for large worksheets) and I've had the opportunity to evaluate it in greater detail. Whilst there are some features that I quite like (either new or enhanced ones), there are still too many gaps. This failure to adequately implement image display ensures that I will continue to use Mathcad 14/15 to develop my worksheets.

Stuart

JFPittet · ‎Oct 23, 2024

Hello,

I receive a "kudos" 10 years after my last message 🙂 It is nice to see that people are reading old messages.

If I do today a summary about Prime software ...

Prime 1: installed but not usable (no image functions)

Prime 2: installed but not usable (no image functions)

Prime 3: installed but not usable (no image functions)

Prime 4: installed but not usable (no image functions)

Prime 5: installed but not usable (no image functions)

Prime 6: installed but not usable (no image functions)

Prime 7: installed but not usable (no image functions)

Prime 8: installed but not usable (no image functions)

Today is Prime 9 available ... and you can think what is the result ... not usable.

Note that I installed all the Prime from 1 to 8, but not the version 9.

Regards,

Jean-Francois

StuartBruff · ‎Oct 23, 2024

@JFPittet wrote:

Today is Prime 9 available ... and you can think what is the result ... not usable.

Note that I installed all the Prime from 1 to 8, but not the version 9.

Regards,

Jean-Francois

We're on Mathcad Prime 10 today. 🙂

But, ... no Plot component equivalent yet, I'm afraid. 😢

Stuart

JFPittet · ‎Oct 24, 2024

Hello Stuart,

You are right. I remark now that I already downloaded the version 10, but like the version 9, never installed it on my computer.

I found in my old emails that I participated to the Alpha Tests of the Prime 1.0 in February 2010. That is now more that 14 years !! And the Prime version is still not comparable to the Mathcad version.

Regards,

Jean-Francois

Werner_E · ‎Oct 24, 2024

@JFPittet wrote:

...

That is now more that 14 years !! And the Prime version is still not comparable to the Mathcad version.

But that's not true! 😈
Of course Prime is comparable to Mathcad - but this comparison is extremely sad and sobering. Especially when you consider that Prime was developed on the basis of Mathcad and has been on the market for many years now, this is very disappointing and incomprehensible.

JFPittet · ‎Oct 24, 2024

Hello,

You are right that after 14 years it is possible to use Prime.

But it is still not a „one to one“ continuation of Mathcad. Around 99% of my old files cannot be used.

Some colleagues are using Prime … but, they start with Prime and they were before no Mathcad user !

I do not know how good is the automatic conversion, but in the past it was not working. And in place to try to correct “100” errors, it was simpler to restart from zero a new file in Prime.

My last Mathcad 15 is the M050 version and seems to be from November 2017. It is now 7 years and I guess that we have in our company only for 1 or 2 years support, means generation of licence files for new installations.

So I continue to hope that PTC one day will add the (active) image function in Prime … so that I can write “finally” before I will retire.

Regards,

Jean-Francois

StuartBruff · ‎Oct 24, 2024

@JFPittet wrote:

Hello,

You are right that after 14 years it is possible to use Prime.

But it is still not a „one to one“ continuation of Mathcad. Around 99% of my old files cannot be used.

Some colleagues are using Prime … but, they start with Prime and they were before no Mathcad user !

I do not know how good is the automatic conversion, but in the past it was not working. And in place to try to correct “100” errors, it was simpler to restart from zero a new file in Prime.

My last Mathcad 15 is the M050 version and seems to be from November 2017. It is now 7 years and I guess that we have in our company only for 1 or 2 years support, means generation of licence files for new installations.

So I continue to hope that PTC one day will add the (active) image function in Prime … so that I can write “finally” before I will retire.

Regards,

Jean-Francois

Mathcad Prime 10 has "advanced controls", ie they accept inputs, generate outputs, and can be programmed using JScript (slim Javascript 3(?)) or VBScript, although the latter is deprecated. The .mcd/.xmcd worksheet converter imports the old-style Mathcad controls and that in turn means a few more of my .mcd/.xmcd worksheets get imported (near) correctly. However, unlike M11..M15, you can't directly assign the output of a control to a function, so there is still a large class of my components that don't work as-is.

But, as noted, still no Picture Operator, and that means there are still many more of my old worksheets that do not convert well.

A further change that negatively impacted my worksheets is the Prime inability to 3D plot nested arrays. AFAIA, the 3D Plot component will only handle a single 3x1 vector of x,y,z data, whereas M11..M15 could handle nested plot data, meaning that complex objects could be drawn with individual plots, for example, being able to be coloured & surfaced differently.

However, the Advanced Controls are nice step in the right direction, and Mathcad Prime's matrix input/editing knocks spots off M11's..M15's method. Plus ctrl-J for converting text to programming operator is a real ergonomic and mental effort saver.

Stuart