Mathematical Principles for Scientific Computing and Visualization
http : // www.farinhansford.com/books/scv
by Gerald Farin and Dianne Hansford

This notebook demonstrates the advantages of using a lin-log plot -- the x-axis is scaled linearly (normal method) and the y-axis is scaled logarithmically.

Mathematica also has log-lin plots (x-axis given logarithmic scale) and log-log plot where both axes are scaled logarithmically.

Figures 12.17 was created with this notebook.

See Chapter 12 : Visualization of Empirical Data for details.

Updated May 2008

Needs["PlotLegends`"]

(* Set output folder *)

(SetDirectory[ToFileName[Extract["FileName"/.NotebookInformation[EvaluationNotebook[]],{1},FrontEnd`FileName]]];) 


(* Plot some functions that vary greatly in growth using standard Plot technique -- linear in x- and y-axies *)

Print["Because of the growth of the exponential function 10^x, the linear and quadratic functions are not visible"]
(pic1=Plot[{x,(10^x),(x^2)},{x,1,10},PlotStyle->{Thickness[0.005`],Thickness[0.01`],Thickness[0.015`]},Frame->True,Axes->False,PlotRange->All,PlotPoints->50,BaseStyle->{"FontFamily"->"Helvetica","FontSize"->11},PlotLegend->{"x", "10^x", "x^2"}, LegendPosition->{1.1,-0.4}] ) 

(* Plot the same functions using a log plot -- linear in x-axis and logarithmic scale in the y-axis *)
Print["The lin-log plot produces a better result -- we can compare the growth of the three functions"]
(pic2=LogPlot[{x,(10^x),(x^2)},{x,1,10},PlotStyle->{Thickness[0.005`],Thickness[0.01`],Thickness[0.015`]},Frame->True,Axes->False,PlotPoints->50,BaseStyle->{"FontFamily"->"Helvetica","FontSize"->11}]) 

(* Output to a postcript file *)
(Export["nonlogplot.eps",pic1];) 
(Export["logplot.eps",pic2];)