Making graphs for your scientific paper

I am writing a paper that compares a couple of algorithms. My prof told me to write a simulation and to make some graphs. As this is not the first time I am doing that, I wanted to describe the process. The first was painful. This time I almost enjoyed it.

The first time went like this. 

1. Implement a simulation. There is a main class that drives the simulation and then there are specific algorithms. So, the main class calls each algorithm and the algorithm prints out the results.
2. Redirect the results into a file. 
3. Open the file in your editor of choice, which is clearly VIM. Manually combine columns into a single file that gnuplot can understand.
4. Open gnuplot and draw a graph. Save the graph in PNG and embed in a paper.

Now, I send the paper to my supervisor and gets a lot of rejects. Dataset should be larger, samples should be smaller, parameters should be different, etc. So, it is back to the same 4 easy steps.Rinse and repeat. And repeat, and repeat...

The process should be automatic. This is how I did it this time.

Gnuplot should get data files that have columns. 




 

To eliminate step #3, this file should be output by simulation directly. The problem is that each column is generated by a different algorithm, which are called sequentially by the code. The way to do that is counter intuitive in a way, the results have to be gathered by the main class, which will then output them all together. 

 This is a code snippet. Gathering of results are highlighted in yellow. Notice that not only results are gathered but also the titles of the columns are fed from the specific algorithms to the main. This is absolutely required, as each line in gnuplot should be labeled and I don't want to add those labels afterwards.

The next step is to automate graph generation. This is done by outputting a gnuplot script (outlined in blue). So, now simulation runs, outputs data into file of all algorithms, outputs gnuplot script. Gnuplot then generates graph automatically.

The best part is that the code generates two graphs in a single run (two calls to "OutputGnuplot"). I can easily generate another one, as all the data is in one place.

As I said. Almost enjoyed it.