matplotlib-users Mailing List for matplotlib

>>>>> "Jay" == Jay Eichelberger <mje...@ea...> writes:
 Jay> Greetings, Thank you for the reply.!!
Hi Jay, I suggest you join the matplotlib mailing list
http://lists.sourceforge.net/mailman/listinfo/matplotlib-users
 Jay> I started using Cygwin at work, where it is used to port Java
 Jay> code between Linux, solaris, and windows. ((
 Jay> http://www.onesaf.org/ )) I installed it at home on my laptop
 Jay> - which runs windows - wasn't able to find all of the Linux
 Jay> device drivers. Cyqwin has GCC compilers - which I used to
 Jay> write C program that called a public server that generated
 Jay> html and jpgs with charts.
 Jay> Alas, the service is no more.
 Jay> May I ask your opinion? Is there a simple way to do this?
 Jay> :-) After 5 hours of surfing and digging, it seems like I
 Jay> would need: - data for the charts - an api for a
 Jay> chart-generator - an output method - portable output
If I understand you correctly, yes this is simple. First, though, I
am not clear if you want to generate the charts and look at them
immediately, or if you want to run the script in batch mode and
produce figures which are not displayed, but are perhaps embedded in
some html for use with a web server. Both are possible but the way
you go about it is a little different. I'm going to assume the former
for now.
 Jay> Graph paper and a compass are starting to look good.. :-)
 Jay> Seriously, if I install Python, MatLab and GTK on windows,
 Jay> what would the chart output be??
I think you are referring to matplotlib, not matlab. matplotlib is an
open source python library for producing graphics with a matlab-like
syntax. matlab is a proprietary application developed by The
Mathworks.
If you install python, Numeric, pygtk, GTK and matplotlib following
the instructions on the matplotlib web site, it should be fairly easy
to do statistical charting with or without cygwin. That seems like a
lot of packages but it is easy since they all have friendly windows
installers.
If you have a fast internet connection and can do a 60MB download, I
recommend the enthought addition of python
http://enthought.com/python/ since it comes Numeric, scipy, wxpython
and a lot of extra goodies you'll find useful down the road. To
install GTK and pygtk, it is important that you follow the
instructions at http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/installing.html;
basically you have to set a PATH.
Your prototype matplotlib script would be
 from matplotlib.matlab import *
 x, y = ... your data here ...
 plot(x,y)
 show()
This would open a GTK window which you can use to view, interact with,
and save your output. I recommend saving figures as PNG, which is a
nice, portable image format, if you want to put them on a web page or
send them to a colleague as an attachment, or PS for publication
quality.
Let me know in a little more detail what it is you are trying to
achieve and I (or someone else on the matplotlib-users mailing list)
can probably offer some more help.
JDH

>>>>> "Gary" == Gary Ruben <ga...@em...> writes:
 Gary> I think it's important to always have an easy way of zooming
 Gary> out to show the full plot, so if you implement your saved
 Gary> view idea and don't want to add a 'fit to full data' button,
 Gary> I think having a 'fit to full data' checkpoint automatically
 Gary> added is important. It might be even be worth looking into
 Gary> cacheing the full view to speed its rendering. That way, you
 Gary> could quickly navigate by zooming to full and then using a
 Gary> rectangle zoom to your area of interest.
Combining my original thoughts with yours and Charles, then. How
about the following? Allow the user to select the old style toolbar
from a config file, but the new toolbar would
 1) lose all the left, right, up down buttons, in favor of a single
 'hand' icon that allows you to move the view limits by 'grabbing
 them in the axes and moving them around. With x or y key pressed
 the pan motion will be contained to the respective axis. The
 mouse button which activates this in the axes should be easily
 configurable so as to not class with application developers.
 2) have a zoom in and zoom out button that work on both axis
 symmetrically unless the 'x' or 'y' modifier keys are pressed in
 which case work only on that axis. Allow similar functionality
 with the mouse in the axes, eg wheel mouse, as Charles suggested
 or mouse-3 as vtk interactor windows use. Then you could pan and
 zoom in an axes without ever removing your mouse from the axes
 lim. 
 3) have a zoom rectangle tool that allows you to zoom to a selected
 rectangle, constrained to maintain axis ratio if CTRL is pressed
 4) have a zoom to data button that changes viewlim to incorporate
 entire dataset
 5) use the 'views' navigation with forward / mark / and back buttons
 that allows you to navigate between views
 6) lose the redraw button, obsolete
 7) have a savefig button which allows you to set the dpi, filename
 and backend, so you can output with ps, gd, or gtk backend
 8) close window unchanged.
Further comments?
JDH

>>>>> "Gary" == Gary Ruben <ga...@em...> writes:
 Gary> Have you thought about whether it's possible to use the
 Gary> interactive gtk (or wx) viewer to zoom to a region of
 Gary> interest then change the backend to PS to save the current
 Gary> view as a PS or EPS? I have no idea whether this is
 Gary> possible.
I have thought about this. It would be nice to work in gtk/wx and then
be able to 'save as' postscript. This shouldn't be too hard. It's
basically a matter of initializing the postscript figure with the
axes contained in the gtk figure.
Thinking aloud in pseudo-py-code
 .. in the gtk print function ...
 if ext matches postscript:
 psfig = FigurePS(args)
 psfig._axes = self._axes
 psfig._text = self._text
 psfig._figurePatch = self._figurePatch
 psfig.print_figure(filename)
 return
I'll look into it. I think it is eminently doable. Barring any major
roadblocks I'll post a patch today. This reminds me: it would be nice
to be able to set the dpi from the print_figure dialog in the GUI as
you can with the savefig commmand.
BTW Gary, in CVS I have reworked the transform architecture and now
you can create lines (and patches) in data units (as before), relative
axes units (0-1) or physical units (points, inches, centimeters). So
I will make the necessary changes to the errorbar code to get the cap
lines specified in the appropriate units. My feeling is that they
should be in points (physical size) but the alternative is in
fractional axes size. The main difference between the 2 is that in
the latter case they change if you are, for example, subplot(221)
versus subplot(111), or if you resize the figure window, and in the
former case they do not. Thoughts?
JDH 

Have you thought about whether it's possible to use the interactive gtk (or wx) viewer to zoom to a region of interest then change the backend to PS to save the current view as a PS or EPS?
I have no idea whether this is possible.
Gary
-- 
__________________________________________________________
Sign-up for your own personalized E-mail at Mail.com
http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup
Search Smarter - get the new eXact Search Bar for free!
http://www.exactsearchbar.com/

My thoughts on navigation:
How about a button that toggles between 1x, 2x, 4x which affects the scaling factor of all zoom and pan buttons?
I think a combination of this, a 'fit to full data' button and a rectangle zoom tool would be most intuitive to me.
I think the zoom in and out should default to affecting both axes equally and have zooming axes indepedently as a special case.
If you implement a zoom rectangle, there should be a way of locking its width-height ratio to be the same as the current display, perhaps by holding CTRL down.
I think it's important to always have an easy way of zooming out to show the full plot, so if you implement your saved view idea and don't want to add a 'fit to full data' button, I think having a 'fit to full data' checkpoint automatically added is important. It might be even be worth looking into cacheing the full view to speed its rendering. That way, you could quickly navigate by zooming to full and then using a rectangle zoom to your area of interest.
Gary
-- 
__________________________________________________________
Sign-up for your own personalized E-mail at Mail.com
http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup
Search Smarter - get the new eXact Search Bar for free!
http://www.exactsearchbar.com/