Hi matplotlib developers, we are developing a symbolic manipulation library in pure Python:
http://code.google.com/p/sympy/ and we wanted to do 3D plotting. To make a long story short, here is a tutorial for our 3D plotting stuff: http://code.google.com/p/sympy/wiki/PlottingModule here is a reasoning behind all of this: http://code.google.com/p/sympy/wiki/PlottingReport especially this: http://straightupcoding.blogspot.com/2007/05/case-for-dropping-matplotlib.html We should have gotten involved more in matplotlib development earlier, but at least now. I think there should be just one 3D plotting library in Python and imho matplotlib should do it. However, we need: * it should be pure python * fast and interactive 3D stuff * needs to work out of the box on linux, mac os x, windows (without compilation) you can read all details above, but we simply use pyglet (http://pyglet.org/), that is like pygame, but better (pure python, works out of the box on all platforms etc). Are you interested in getting our 3D stuff into matplotlib? If yes, is there a way to make matplotlib pure python? Looking at matplotlib sources, the only things done in C++ are agg backend, and then the src/* directory, which I am not sure what exactly it's doing, but I don't see a reason why the kernel of matplotlib cannot be in pure Python (calling python gtk etc.). Optionally, there can be the C++ modules. If such a division is possible, then we could just include matplotlib in sympy sources, the license of matplotlib seems quite permissive: http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/license.html so it should allow this (sympy and pyglet is BSD). In distributions, like Debian, sympy will just depend on matplotlib in debian. But the sympy tarball should be self-contained. The sympy plotting is quite nice, especially that you just download the tarball and it works (even on windows, or macosx) without compilation, however it's missing a lot of features that matplotlib has, so the best thing to do is to integrate it in matplotlib. Another cool stuff in matplotlib is the pure python latex renderer (/matplotlib-0.91.1/lib/matplotlib/mathtext.py). See our issue for more info: http://code.google.com/p/sympy/issues/detail?id=506 we want to use it in our preview capability (currently only in our hg repo): $ hg clone http://hg.sympy.org/sympy/ $ cd sympy $ bin/isympy [...] In [1]: from sympy.abc import * In [2]: pngview(Integral(exp(-(tau-mu)**2/2/sigma**2), (tau, -oo, oo))/ ...: sigma/sqrt(2*pi)) And a window will popup (using pyglet) showing a nice latex printed expression. Currently, you need to have latex installed (and python-pexpect) for it to be working. (if you use sympy hg right now, you need python-pexpect, but we'll fix this before we release soon: http://code.google.com/p/sympy/issues/detail?id=520, any sympy tarball only needs pure Python 2.4 or newer and it will just work, otherwise it's a bug) So it'd be cool to you your pure python reimplementation of the tex engine. Maybe let's create a new (standalone) project just for this feature? I am sure it will benefit to a lot of people. And sympy and matplotlib will just include it in the sources. If you have any other ideas regarding these issues, we are interested. Looking for collaboration, Ondrej ------------------------------------------------------------------------- This SF.net email is sponsored by: Microsoft Defy all challenges. Microsoft(R) Visual Studio 2005. http://clk.atdmt.com/MRT/go/vse0120000070mrt/direct/01/ _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-devel mailing list Matplotlib-devel@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-devel
