After lunch I caught a great session on matplotlib which is a Python library that allows you to plot 2d graphcs in a simple Matlab-like way. The library takes advantage of several graphical frontends, including GTK, Tk, wxWindows, and FLTK. Rumor has it that someone is 90% done with a native Cocoa frontend too.
Take a look at the screenshots for examples of what it can do. It looks like a very easy way to generate really nice looking plots and graphs. The demos took advantage of an enhanced Python shell called IPython, which I had heard about before but hadn’t looked at closely. IPython allows you to work with matplotlib in the interpreter. You need to do some custom handling if you would like to work with it from the standard interpreter. Its outout is highly configurable and looks extremely polished.
We loved the site, really loved it!
Definitely a great package. You get the power of Python scripting rolled into a very nice plotting package. I use it in my work.