\chapter{Introduction}
This package provides tools to generate plots and labeled axes easily. It draws normal plots, logplots and semi-logplots, in two and three dimensions. Axis ticks, labels, legends (in case of multiple plots) can be added with key-value options. It supports line plots, scatter plots, piecewise constant plots, bar plots, area plots, mesh-- and surface plots, patch plots, contour plots, quiver plots, histogram plots, box plots, polar axes, ternary diagrams, smith charts and some more. 
It can cycle through a set of predefined line/marker/color specifications. 

In summary, its purpose is to simplify the generation of high-quality function and/or data plots, and solving the problems of
\begin{itemize}
	\item consistency of document and font type and font size,
	\item direct use of \TeX\ math mode in axis descriptions,
	\item consistency of data and figures (no third party tool necessary),
	\item inter-document consistency using preamble configurations and styles.
\end{itemize}
Although not necessary, separate |.pdf| or |.eps| graphics can be generated using the |external| library developed as part of \Tikz.

You are invited to use \PGFPlots\ for visualization of medium sized data sets in two and three dimensions.

It is based on Till Tantau's package \PGF/\Tikz.
