Macintosh graphing, visualization, and modelling / SEM software

See our related pages on:

• Data extraction software (to get data from scanned graphs and images)
• Regression/ANOVA software packages;
• Time series analysis software packages;
• General math software packages;
• Other specialized applications, including meta-analysis software packages

Online solutions

• StatCrunch, a free statistics package using Java; runs fine under Safari
• Zunzun, free interactive two- and three-dimensional data modeling. “Error histograms, error plots, curve plots, surface plots, contour plots, VRML, and source code.” Requires Python so it should be Mac compatible. (thanks, Carl Witthoft)

Aabel

Configurations: OS X native; Universal; Snow Leopard (version 2.4 had Altivec and non-Altivec versions)
Current version: 3.04
Cost: $575
Listing updated: 1/2010
Publisher/site: Gigawiz

The learning curve is steep; operations are conducted in pipelines, making the basic menus sparse with large modal dialogue boxes in which the real work is done. There appears to be no programming language, which makes it more suitable for casual and exploratory work. It loads Excel files, preserving variable names.

On Macintouch.com, Andrew Fiore praised Aabel’s visualizations, and Robin Lake noted its ability to handle a large number of variables and its strong regression tools. Arthur Busbey wrote "this is the envy of more than one Windows person I have showed it to. It has some great niche graphics for the earth sciences that you can't easily get anywhere else." If you have a lot of data to plot, or repeated graphs of the same kind to draw, it's not very flexible. e.g. if you want to plot graphs with a large number of lines (something I do often) I have to go through and set colour of each line individually.

Dr. Jake Bundy wrote, “Surprisingly useful for multivariate analysis, but with some severe annoyances, e.g. writes all the data to new worksheets, meaning they are no longer connected. The best feature is the popup window next to the graph sheet listing the variables in the worksheet. If you are interested in hunting for correlations (say), it makes it easy to set var1 as your X, and then use the arrow key to flick rapidly between var2 -> var3 ... -> varN, and watch the plots change.”

Aabel includes map trend analysis, cartographic projection, user-defined multipliers for scientific notations, and statistics plugins modules through a plugin SDK. Version 3 added K-means clustering, the Shapiro-Wilk test for normality, extended ANOVA, extended multiple comparisons, Fisher's z transformation, and much more.

Aabel 3.04 was set up mainly to increase Snow Leopard compatibility and add bug fixes; in addition, users can now declare whether empty cells should be undefined or set to zero in hierarchical and K-means cluster analyses.

Cartes & Donées (formerly Map & Data / Cartographer)

Configurations: Was once PPC OS 7+, OS X; currently unknown
Specific information, including Mac compatibility, was not available as of June 2008.

Cartes & Données is a “geo-statistical” analysis package available in French only from Articque.The free download is a limited-function version of the commercial products, which include Cartes & Données Premium and Cartes & Données Plus.

ChartSmith

Configurations: Universal
Current Version: 1.30
Price: $129
Listing updated: 6/2008
Publisher: Blacksmith

Designed for OS X, ChartSmith is not burdened with cross-platform baggage and uncertainty á la DeltaGraph, but otherwise performs many of the same functions - making charts and graphs for publication and providing loads of analytical features. It allows Excel importing and PowerPoint and Charts exporting. Graphics are snazzy with AppleTalk controls. We wanted to like it, we really did, but we found the interface awkward and unnecessarily driven by OS X ideals. Keynote users may find the integration features handy; you can import data from Excel.

Citrin

Configurations: Universal — OS X 10.4 to 10.6
Current Version: 2.0
Price: $375 and up
Listing updated: 10/2009
Published by: Gigawiz

Citrin does interactive scientific graphing and curve fitting, providing charts, such as scatter and line series, bar, column, area, 3-D, ternary scatter, pie, polar, box and whisker, histograms, probability charts, etc.; curve fitting with built-in functions, as well as a module for user-defined, non-linear curve fitting with an interactive graphical interface; flexible capabilities for applying error bars; full Unicode support, diverse graphic export formats; and native worksheets that can import and store large data sets from diverse data formats. It allows Excel and other imports and PDF, Photoshop, and other exports. Citrin also provides real-time, two-way interaction between charts and their source worksheets, and claims to be the first relatively low-cost commercial program to allow data brushing to highlight data interrelationships.

Version 2.0, introduced in October 2009 (roughly two years after 1.1), added Snow Leopard compatibility, X-zooming, color themes, binary scatter charts, three new graph types for polar charts, basic heatmap diagrams, waterfall pseudo-surface charts, bubble charts with five variables, multiple types of spider charts, contour matrix graphs, ternary contour graphics, combined area-line charts, two-way box and whisker graphs, and support for dBase imports.

DataGraph

Compatibility: Universal (OS X 10.4-10.6); Cocoa-based
Version: 2.2
Price: $40 (free trial with some features disabled)
Listing updated 4/2010.
Published by: VisualDataTools.com

Developer David Adalsteinsson wrote that this $40 program was written in Cocoa, and so is native to OS X. It grew out of DataTank and shares underlying graphics code, but is limited to two-dimensional graphing and a single window; the design is “simple and powerful,” with an emphasis on publication-quality output. Amazingly, DataGraph reads in CricketGraph files, creates animations, and can be called from Automator or the command line. Support appears to be ongoing.

Version 2.2 adds a command for drawing lines between points, a search strip, and a Step option.

DataTank

OS X (PPC); Cocoa-based
$595 academic/government, $1,195 “normal.” Free trial.
Includes two years of support and updates. Listing updated 8/2/05.
Published by: VisualDataTools.com

Winner of the 2005 Apple Design Award for Best Scientific Computing Solution. From their web site:

DataTank is designed for scientific visualization, data mining, and algorithm development, but it is flexible enough to be used for a variety of other uses as well. Like other scientific visualization programs DataTank uses OpenGL to draw 3D graphics, and supports transparency, interactive rotation, multiple light sources and camera positions. DataTank uses the strength of Quartz to generate publication quality vector-graphics as PDF/EPS or anti-aliased bitmaps for use in web pages and presentations. ... DataTank enables interactive exploration of large data sets. ... DataTank will perform incremental evaluation, treating data sets with millions of data points and hundreds of thousands of entries the same way as a simple data set that is typed in manually.

Dennis Kahlbaum wrote: “Excellent support.  Program is extremely flexible and can be used for graphics, statistics, visualizations, etc; Can produce animations of contours (lines and shading) generated from variably spaced data. Can use ESRI shapfiles.” We add that it is scriptable.

DeltaGraph

Configurations: 68030 or later, OS 7-9 (older versions); Universal
Current Version: 6
Price: $299 ($199 academic); upgrades currently at $79 (download)
Listing updated: 8-26-10
Software last updated: 2010
Published by: Red Rock Software

DeltaGraph is a dual-platform charting program developed on the Mac, now cross-platform; owned for a time by SPSS, it has been at Red Rock Software for years now. DeltaGraph now has Mac/Windows feature parity and statistical abilities including linear and nonlinear regression. (Amusingly, Cricket Graph did both in 1987.) In 2010, after four years, version 6 was finally released, with a revised interface, cross-platform-friendly files, support for third-party spot colors in PDF and EPS export, and international text support.

GMT - The Generic Mapping Tools   

Configurations: UNIX, OS X; since you compile it, Universal
Current version: 4.13
Listing updated: 6-6-06

A collection of command-line tools that run on all Unix-like systems, including Mac OS X. See gmt.soest.hawaii.edu for details. Many of the main developers (including me) use Mac OS X. (Description by Paul Wessel)

Grapher / Graphing Calculator

Configurations: OS 7-9, PowerPC depending on version
Price: Comes with MacOS

This software was made available free of charge by Apple with the first PowerPC systems to show off the awesome power of the 60 MHz PowerPC 601 chips (which in some ways were quite speedy, but most people probably found themselves wishing for a Quadra). They have continued on, in various forms, through to OS X, and can actually do a number of useful things. Steve Martin of the University of Melbourne suggested its inclusion, noting that the new verison of Grapher allows importing sets of points and includes sample files. This only works for graphing functions.

GraphSketcher

Configurations: Universal Binary
Price: Shareware, $10 educational / $30 standard
Listing updated: 8-22-07

An amazingly quick and easy to use program for drawing instant, readable scatterplots and for drawing graphs by hand (without data). Written by Robin Stewart (graphsketcher.com).

Graphical Analysis

Configurations: OS 9, OS X (PPC only), Windows
Price: $80
Listing updated: 8-21-06

From Vernier Solutions, Graphical Analysis is, like DeltaGraph and KaleidaGraph, a program to create charts and graphs for presentation. Like DeltaGraph and KaleidaGraph, it lets you “create and print graphs, data tables, text, FFTs, and histograms.
Perform automatic curve fits, and add models with adjustable parameters to your graphs. Calculate statistics, tangents, integrals, and interpolations.” But unlike its more popular (on the Mac, anyway) brethren, Graphical Analysis does not seem to be getting updates.

Graphviz

Configurations: PPC
Current Version: 1.13
Listing updated: 6-6-06

Graphviz is the AT&T open source drawing package. The Mac OS X version and the overall project have their own web sites. The OS X version now uses the Aqua user interface. Prepare for a steep learning curve but it may be worth it if you have graphs you do frequently; not what I'd suggest for the occasional one-off though.

gnuplot

Configurations: PPC
Current Version: 4.1
Price: free

gnuplot is the Mac version of the open source scientific plotting software. It is available online from many sources.

Igor Pro

Configurations: 68020, with or without FPU; Universal Binary
$400 academic, $550 normal
Current Version: 6.0
Listing updated: 1-28-07

Igor Pro is a charting and data analysis program published by WaveMetrics, Inc. “IGOR Pro is an interactive software environment for experimentation with scientific and engineering data and for the production of publication-quality graphs and page layouts.” IGOR's data files are cross-platform. Analysis includes curve fitting, peak analysis, signal processing, and descriptive statistics. As of version 6, Igor Pro is a Universal Binary, and expanded statistics are available, along with built in FIR and IIR filtering.

JMP

A highly capable data visualization and discovery package which is very speedy and has a friendly Mac-like interface, JMP is covered on the main page.

Kaleidagraph

Configurations: 68000 with/without FPU (older versions); PPC (OS 9 / OS X 10.15+)
Current Version: 4.1
Price: $200 (academic $140); crossgrades $60
Listing updated: 8-18-09
Software last updated: August 2009

Kaleidagraph is a (dual-platform) data analysis and graphing application published by Synergy Software. A demo is available. Kaleidagaph's promotional materials promise essentially everything offered by DeltaGraph and then some. The Universal Binary update did not appear until August 2009, but it came with Intel-Mac optimization at long last, along with the use of QuickTime for export, which provides extra features.

Users have written in to say that Kaleidagraph can easily tabulate, normalize, and combine data sets, make numerical calculations of theoretical expressions for comparisons with the measured data points, make publication-quality graphs with little effort.

James P. Conner pointed out, "KaleidaGraph can handle 1,000 columns and one million rows, while Delta Graph is (last time I looked) limited to 256 columns and 32K rows. Also, K-Graph's statistical functions have been expanded significantly in the last two releases, and are much more useful than D-Graph's." We’ll also note that it’s cheaper.

Matplotlib

Free - open source - for Mac OS X
Currently in beta
Report updated: 5/15/07

Matplotlib is a pure python plotting library with the goal of making publication quality plots using a syntax familiar to matlab users. The library uses Numeric for handling large data sets and supports a variety of output backends

MX (free)

Mac OS X, Linux, many other versions
Current version: 1.55 (parity)
Last revised: April 19, 2004 (listing updated 6/2008)

Mx is a very cross-platform package that even has an on-line and Unix server version; it is written by Michael Neal. While there is a graphic user interface for Windows, the writer recommends doing a server installation to allow for a graphic interface. (Thanks, Stephen J. Read).

Prism

GraphPad’s Prism is an excellent platform for graphing, providing the usability of graphing software with many advanced statistical capabilities. Numerous graph types are available along with flexible regression curving. See our main Mac statistics software page (under GraphPad).

pro Fit

Configurations: PowerPC, OS X; supports Spotlight; Universal as of 6.1
Current Version: 6.1
Price: $95
Report updated: 5/15/07

pro Fit is a data analysis and plotting software package from QuantumSoft. Dave [not me] wrote: "...it has an extensive Applescript dictionary, ability to handle large data sets well (I've done graphs with hundreds of thousands of points), can be extended by writing plug ins or adding formulas that you create, does great curve fitting. I consider it much more feature complete than Kaliedagraph and far more intuitive than Igor Pro. They have excellent customer support, usually getting back to you within 24 hours if you have a bug report or feature request." We have observed that ProFit is frequently updated which indicates it is well supported (11/05).

“pro Fit is a Macintosh (Mac OS) application for data/function analysis, plotting, and curve fitting. It is used by scientists and engineers to analyze their measurements and the mathematical models they use to describe them. Scientists or students can define any mathematical function and use it to model their data, finding by linear or nonlinear curve fitting the function parameters that best describe their observations. Moreover, they can use a number of tools for the mathematical and statistical analysis of functions and data sets, and they can produce aesthetically pleasing graphical representations for their scientific reports.”

Version 6.1 changes: now Universal Binary; new tool for multidimensional curve fitting; revamped rendering engine for plots with native Core Graphics, PDF, and PostScript support; additions to the scripting language; more.

R with SEM add-on (free)

R is a general purpose open source statistics package (see the separate page on R for the Mac); there is an SEM (Structural Equation Models) add-on by John Fox.

There is also a PLS package (Adam Naples wrote, “it’s kind of a less constrained, or exploratory SEM”) for R.

SciPy

For Linux and Windows but may be compiled on Macs

SciPy is a library of scientific tools for Python which supplements the Numeric module. SciPy includes modules for graphics and plotting, optimization, integration, special functions, signal and image processing, genetic algorithms, ODE solvers, and others.

Simgua

Version: 3.4 (for OS X 10.4+) and Windows
Price: $860 retail, $64 academic

Simgua simulates and models complex systems with visual modeling, a Visual Basic compiler for Macs, macros, custom materials, and material transformations.

VTK (Visualization Toolkit)

Pre-compiled only for Windows; may be compiled from source code for OS X
Latest version: 4.2 (listing updated 8/2005)

The Visualization ToolKit (VTK) is a system for 3D computer graphics, image processing, and visualization with several interface layers. In VTK applications can be written directly in C++, Tcl, Java, or Python.

VTK supports a wide variety of visualization algorithms including scalar, vector, tensor, texture, and volumetric methods; and advanced modeling techniques like implicit modelling, polygon reduction, mesh smoothing, cutting, contouring, and Delaunay triangulation. Moreover, we have directly integrated dozens of imaging algorithms into the system so you can mix 2D imaging / 3D graphics algorithms and data. Our goal is to make the software easy enough for any computer literate person to use.

Vvidget

Configurations: Universal, 32-bit and 64-bit versions; Snow Leopard
Current Version: 10.6.3
Price: Free
Publisher/site: VVidget.org

Lance Bland, the developer, wrote: "In addition to all the standard features, Vvidget includes advanced features such as floating ticks, curves that can extend beyond the graph frame or can be truncated and literally hundreds of tunable parameters. 3D types rotate in real time and even the graph labels can be rotated in their own plane, independent of the main graph rotation. Data can be inserted through a list of numbers or by point and click methods." The same developer provides software such as QuadraticLab for other math functions. The software appears to be under very active development.

In version 10.6, VVidge has a new, improved manual with tutorials; drag-and-drop of graphs to Cocoa projects in the Interface Builder; and other features.

Others

Grace is a WYSIWYG 2D plotting tool for the X Window System that runs on “practically any version of Unix-like OS.”

Ctioga is an open source command-line plotting system written in Ruby. It has been designed to make rapidly publication-quality graphes.

Abandoned Mac graphing and data visualization software

See the dead zone.