I have another long-simmering feature request along these lines: if
Matplotlib were to evolve a formal DOM-like figure structure like mentioned
above, it would be cool if this structure retained more semantic
information about the visualization itself. By this, I mean that many
high-level commands like hist, scatter, etc. spawn a bunch of low level
artists like rectangles and circles. After these methods exit, it's
hard/impossible to introspect a Figure and diagnose that it, for example,
is a histogram and not a bar chart.
Retaining a better high-level description of a plot (which probably amounts
to creating more compound artist types) would make it easier to build tools
like mpld3 and other cool things that involve runtime editing or
optimization of tree-like data structures.
chris
On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 3:34 PM, Jacob Vanderplas <jake...@cs.washington.edu
> wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 12:04 PM, Michael Droettboom <md...@stsci.edu>wrote:
>
>>
>> I hope all of the above makes sense...
>>
>
> Definitely makes sense: what I've built-up in mpld3 is essentially
> something that mimics this sort of visitor pattern, though it misses some
> things because of the draw-time difficulties you mention.
> I think a two-stage draw() would be a _very_ helpful restructure.
> Currently, I'm forced to achieve this result by writing a png to a
> throwaway byte-stream...
> Jake
>
>
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>
>> On 01/14/2014 01:30 PM, Jacob Vanderplas wrote:
>>
>> Thanks - we'll make it happen at some point.
>>
>> Perhaps I can give the seed for a discussion: the stuff I've been doing
>> with mpld3 is a lot of fun, but it's fundamentally limited by the fact that
>> I have to dig around the internals of the figure object to find the
>> relevant information to construct a plot representation. I may be able to
>> do the same thing by creating a backend, but the problem is that the draw()
>> methods of most objects call the renderer with no reference to whether the
>> points lie in the data space or figure space: that is, paths and points are
>> usually specified in figure/pixel coordinates or some transformed version
>> thereof, which makes it near impossible to construct interactive
>> representations absent Python kernel callbacks.
>>
>> What I'd love to see is some enhancement of the backend framework where
>> there are some extra flags and information passed to the renderer: i.e. for
>> each draw command, we need to know whether the drawn object should be
>> linked to static figure coordinates or to dynamic axes/data coordinates.
>>
>> I've been in touch with Cyrille Rossant from the vispy team, Chris
>> Beaumont from the Glue team, and Matt Sundwuist from the plotly team, all
>> of whom asked if there might be a way to use what I've done with mpld3 to
>> enable matplotlib to export into their own front-end format. I didn't
>> start mpld3 with that sort of extensibility in mind, but I'm starting to
>> invest some time thinking about how to design that.
>>
>> With the current matplotlib package, I think there are two ways to
>> accomplish it: one is to create a general backend-like interface based on
>> the figure introspection that mpld3 currently uses. The artist elements in
>> each figure contain enough information to be able to infer whether the
>> elements should move & zoom with the axes or not. The problem is, a lot of
>> elements (like legends, axes aspects, etc.) are not fully established until
>> the draw() command is called, so there are a few ugly hacks required to
>> make it happen.
>>
>> The other option is to use an even uglier hack, and wrap the current
>> backend framework with an object that somehow links back into the figure
>> and infers from the draw_*() commands whether the path/point/marker/etc.
>> should be drawn in static figure coordinates or in dynamic axes
>> coordinates. I've started a simple prototype backend translator which has a
>> renderer class that uses ``inspect`` back-trace the stack and accomplish
>> this: It's really ugly, and I'm not particularly proud about it, but I
>> think it's the current best way to accomplish the desired behavior.
>>
>> Ugly hacks aside, I think all of this points to a general desire for a
>> new type of backend-like hook that can export dynamic plot elements in data
>> coordinates, and static plot elements in figure coordinates. An
>> enhancement in that direction could pave the way for a lot of interesting
>> interactive front-ends to matplotlib figures.
>>
>> Anyway - if any of you have suggestions or responses to this, I'd love
>> to hear them! Thanks,
>> Jake
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 9:11 AM, Michael Droettboom <md...@stsci.edu>wrote:
>>
>>> Jake: I'd definitely like to get you into one of these calls at some
>>> point. If you're able to pop in late, that would still be great -- or we
>>> can save that for another date. Trying to get Japan, three NA timezones
>>> and the UK all together is challenging ;)
>>>
>>> In any event, with Thomas, Ben, Michiel and myself confirmed, I think
>>> that's enough to go ahead, and hopefully others who have yet to respond can
>>> join as well.
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>>>
>>> On 01/14/2014 11:57 AM, Jacob Vanderplas wrote:
>>>
>>> I'll probably not be able to swing 6am on the west coast, but other
>>> folks are more important for this call, I think :)
>>> Jake
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 8:51 AM, Benjamin Root <ben.r...@ou.edu> wrote:
>>>
>>>> That would actually work a little bit better for me... I just have to
>>>> remember to get into work a little bit earlier.
>>>>
>>>> Ben
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, Jan 14, 2014 at 11:36 AM, Michael Droettboom
>>>> <md...@stsci.edu>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I'm fine with starting the meeting an hour early. How about others?
>>>>>
>>>>> Mike
>>>>>
>>>>> On 01/14/2014 04:57 AM, Michiel de Hoon wrote:
>>>>> > I can join this Thursday if we start with the discussion on timers.
>>>>> > If we can start 1 hour earlier (14:00 UTC, 9 am ET, 23:00 in Japan)
>>>>> that would be even better.
>>>>> > -Michiel.
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> > --------------------------------------------
>>>>> > On Mon, 1/13/14, Michael Droettboom <md...@stsci.edu> wrote:
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Subject: [matplotlib-devel] Meeting...?
>>>>> > To: "matplotlib-devel@lists.sourceforge.net" <
>>>>> matplotlib-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>
>>>>> > Date: Monday, January 13, 2014, 11:36 AM
>>>>> >
>>>>> > It's probably a good time to schedule
>>>>> > another matplotlib Google Hangout.
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Is this Thursday at 1500 UTC (10 am ET) too short notice for
>>>>> > the usual
>>>>> > candidates?
>>>>> >
>>>>> > I know there was discussion of getting Michiel de Hoon on
>>>>> > today (which I
>>>>> > just saw, unfortunately). Is there another time in the
>>>>> > future that
>>>>> > works for you, Michiel?
>>>>> >
>>>>> > Mike
>>>>> >
>>>>> > --
>>>>> >
>>>>> > _
>>>>> > |\/|o _|_ _. _ | | \.__ __|__|_|_ _
>>>>> > _ ._ _
>>>>> > | ||(_| |(_|(/_| |_/|(_)(/_|_ |_|_)(_)(_)| | |
>>>>> >
>>>>> > http://www.droettboom.com
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
>>>>> >
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>>>>> |\/|o _|_ _. _ | | \.__ __|__|_|_ _ _ ._ _
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>>>>>
>>>>> http://www.droettboom.com
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> _
>>> |\/|o _|_ _. _ | | \.__ __|__|_|_ _ _ ._ _
>>> | ||(_| |(_|(/_| |_/|(_)(/_|_ |_|_)(_)(_)| | |
>>> http://www.droettboom.com
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> _
>> |\/|o _|_ _. _ | | \.__ __|__|_|_ _ _ ._ _
>> | ||(_| |(_|(/_| |_/|(_)(/_|_ |_|_)(_)(_)| | |
>> http://www.droettboom.com
>>
>>
>
>
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--
************************************
Chris Beaumont
Graduate Student
Institute for Astronomy
University of Hawaii at Manoa
2680 Woodlawn Drive
Honolulu, HI 96822
www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~beaumont
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