Origin is a proprietary computer program for interactive scientific graphing and data analysis. It is produced by OriginLab Corporation, and runs on Microsoft Windows. It has inspired several platform-independent open-source clones like QtiPlot or SciDAVis.
Graphing support in Origin includes various 2D/3D plot types. Data analyses in Origin include statistics, signal processing, curve fitting and peak analysis. Origin’s curve fitting is performed by the nonlinear least squares fitter which is based on the Levenberg–Marquardt algorithm.
Origin is primarily a GUI (Graphical User Interface) software with a spreadsheet front end. Unlike popular spreadsheets like Excel, Origin’s worksheet is column oriented. Each column has associated attributes like name, units and other user definable labels. Instead of cell formula, Origin uses column formula for calculations.
