matplotlib-devel Mailing List for matplotlib

Dear developers,
I use Matplotlib to process and display images acquired by microscopes.
It is quite common to indicate dimensions by displaying scale bar in the
image rather than using axes with labels. Although axes enable you to
refer to specific location in the image, they take up space around the
image, so if you only need to show the scale, scale bar is better.
What is needed:
 - The scale bar of given dimension (data units), possibly with bars at
its ends.
 - Text (presumably centered under the bar), text size as well as
vertical offset in physical units (= units reflecting the actual image
size, like the font size)
 - Semi-transparent rectangle, so the scale and label are more readable
 - Dark/bright theme might be a good idea.
I have made an svg file in Inkscape, so you can see what I mean.
First of all, I tried to implement the stuff myself, but later I have
found out that there is something on github. I have forked it, made some
minor modifications, and I think that it is "almost done". 
https://gist.github.com/4100881 (the add_scalebar function there is
broken ATM)
I also attach the test code for your convenience. You need to run it
with scalebars.py in the same directory.
You are supposed to see a tiny bright scalebar at the bottom right
corner.
There are some outstanding issues, though:
 - I have a feeling that bars at the end of the scale bar should be
related to the font size, as well as the actual width of the scale bar.
How to achieve this?
 - How to make the semi-transparent background for the bar and label in
a smart way?
Could you help me with those? I would like this to appear in matplotlib
since it is IMO a useful feature, what needs to be done?
Regards,
Matěj Týč

On Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 4:07 PM, Cyrille Rossant
<cyr...@gm...> wrote:
> OK so I now have a very experimental proof of concept of how integrating
> Galry in the IPython notebook. There's a short demo here:
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taN4TobRS-E
>
> I'll put the code on github but there's of course much more to do.
>
> I'll also work on a basic matplotlib-like high-level interface that will
> work in both standard python/ipython consoles, and in the IPython notebook.
Awesome! This is really great to see, before long we'll sort out
these APIs so all this can be made available easily to end users.
Great job!
Cheers,
f

Thanks everyone for the feedback.
yeah -- scipy dependency is just a joke, as I said, since only sem is in
use, so would be trivial to 'fix'.
As for where to contribute unless to matplotlib -- I would have just
sticked it in our own PyMVPA ;) but I think those would be generally
useful, so I will just try to cook up a proper PR against matplotlib
some time next week and then go from there.
Cheers!
On 2012年11月16日, Paul Hobson wrote:
> [4]http://nbviewer.ipython.org/url/www.onerussian.com/tmp/run_plots.ipynb
> > I wonder if there is a need/place for it in matplotlib and what
> changes would
> > you advise. Sorry for the lack of documentation -- I guess I have not
> finished
> > it at that point (scipy dependency can easily be dropped, used only
> for
> > standard error function iirc):
> Looks nice. We'd certainly be interesting in including it in
> statsmodels/graphics if there isn't sufficient interest here and/or
> you'd like to keep the scipy dependency. ;)
> I was going to suggest either the same thing or adding it to pandas. I
> think statsmodels if the better fit, though. I also noticed scipy is only
> used for scipy.stats.sem -- so it might be easy enough to loose the scipy
> dependency. Just a thought.
-- 
Yaroslav O. Halchenko
Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Dartmouth College, 419 Moore Hall, Hinman Box 6207, Hanover, NH 03755
Phone: +1 (603) 646-9834 Fax: +1 (603) 646-1419
WWW: http://www.linkedin.com/in/yarik 

>
> Yup, it's a bit of a hack right now b/c you need to merge several
>> branches and tools that are still in review, but it's not too bad.
>>
>> You need to start from this branch:
>>
>> https://github.com/ellisonbg/ipython/tree/jsonhandlers
>>
>> and then grab this repo:
>>
>> https://github.com/ipython/jsplugins
>>
>> I would start by testing the d3graph plugin and verify that you can do
>> what I show here (watch ~ 40 seconds):
>>
>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4rFuIb1Ie4&t=40m0s
>>
>> That should give you the basics. Then the webgl visualizer example is
>> here:
>>
>> https://github.com/RishiRamraj/seepymol
>>
>
OK so I now have a very experimental proof of concept of how integrating
Galry in the IPython notebook. There's a short demo here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taN4TobRS-E
I'll put the code on github but there's of course much more to do.
I'll also work on a basic matplotlib-like high-level interface that will
work in both standard python/ipython consoles, and in the IPython notebook.
Cheers,
Cyrille