Software for drawing scientific data [closed]

Question

I'm looking for a software for drawing scientific data, mostly vectors, coordinate systems and diagrams, for example:

Answer 1

Have you looked at: Mathematica, Matlab, Maxima, GNUPlot?

Answer 2

R has excellent charting available, although it requires you to learn some syntax (well worth the effort in my view).

The arrows() function can be used to do that. Here's a simple example of how to use that function:

x <- stats::runif(12); y <- stats::rnorm(12)
i <- order(x,y); x <- x[i]; y <- y[i]
plot(x,y, main="arrows(.) and segments(.)")
## draw arrows from point to point :
s <- seq(length(x)-1)
arrows(x[s], y[s], x[s+1], y[s+1], col= 1:3)

More generally, read "Drawing Diagrams with R" from the recent R Journal article, which includes a discussion of coordinate systems.

Answer 3

This really belongs on SuperUser. But since you asked here, how about PGF/TikZ?

Very simple example:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}[scale=1.5]
    % Draw axes
    \draw [<->,thick] (0,2) node (yaxis) [above] {$y$}
        |- (3,0) node (xaxis) [right] {$x$};
    % Draw two intersecting lines
    \draw (0,0) coordinate (a_1) -- (2,1.8) coordinate (a_2);
    \draw (0,1.5) coordinate (b_1) -- (2.5,0) coordinate (b_2);
    % Calculate the intersection of the lines a_1 -- a_2 and b_1 -- b_2
    % and store the coordinate in c.
    \coordinate (c) at (intersection of a_1--a_2 and b_1--b_2);
    % Draw lines indicating intersection with y and x axis. Here we use
    % the perpendicular coordinate system
    \draw[dashed] (yaxis |- c) node[left] {$y'$}
        -| (xaxis -| c) node[below] {$x'$};
    % Draw a dot to indicate intersection point
    \fill[red] (c) circle (2pt);
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Results in:

tikz picture http://media.texample.net/tikz/examples/PNG/intersecting-lines.png