A users experience with plotting under Python:
I know plotting has been discussed on this list before. Many people
indicate that the lack of quality plotting is preventing them from using
Numerical Python as a complete replacement for IDL or MATLAB.
I have been using gist for the past several months and found it to be
excellent for investigative plotting (except I miss axes on surface
plots). The plot quality and flexibility with gist is excellent (it is
particularly easy to use for me with the matlab-like plotting commands I
implemented)
However, recently I needed to produce plots with legends on them so I
turned to DISLIN. I had seen DISLIN before and even had it installed but
it looked pretty complicated to use so I hadn't tried it since I wasn't
desperate for good plots. Well, I've now tried it and I'm impressed.
It is a COMPLETE plotting system. After a bit of reading to understand
the plotting paradigm (it is a very powerful but non-obvious system) I can
now make any plot I need with the system, and configure it to my hearts
content.
There are even quick plotting functions defined so that I can make
surface plots (with axes) and color plots with an automatic color bar,
with a single plot command. I can even use dislin and gist together which
works very well.
An object-oriented wrapper around the quick-plots so that all the
properties could be set easily would make dislin quite phenomenal for use
with Python.
I don't mean this post to discourage work on the fine plotting efforts
underway with PIDDLE, GRAPHITE, and Snow. These packages will only
improve the plotting choices under Python. I just wanted to express my
pleasure at using DISLIN under Python and encourage others who may be
frustrated about their ability to produce quality output now or who
may be holding back from adopting Python as their interactive
analysis environment to check out DISLIN and see for yourself if it will
serve you.
-Travis
P.S. The dislin homepage is
http://www.linmpi.mpg.de/dislin
I know plotting has been discussed on this list before. Many people
indicate that the lack of quality plotting is preventing them from using
Numerical Python as a complete replacement for IDL or MATLAB.
I have been using gist for the past several months and found it to be
excellent for investigative plotting (except I miss axes on surface
plots). The plot quality and flexibility with gist is excellent (it is
particularly easy to use for me with the matlab-like plotting commands I
implemented)
However, recently I needed to produce plots with legends on them so I
turned to DISLIN. I had seen DISLIN before and even had it installed but
it looked pretty complicated to use so I hadn't tried it since I wasn't
desperate for good plots. Well, I've now tried it and I'm impressed.
It is a COMPLETE plotting system. After a bit of reading to understand
the plotting paradigm (it is a very powerful but non-obvious system) I can
now make any plot I need with the system, and configure it to my hearts
content.
There are even quick plotting functions defined so that I can make
surface plots (with axes) and color plots with an automatic color bar,
with a single plot command. I can even use dislin and gist together which
works very well.
An object-oriented wrapper around the quick-plots so that all the
properties could be set easily would make dislin quite phenomenal for use
with Python.
I don't mean this post to discourage work on the fine plotting efforts
underway with PIDDLE, GRAPHITE, and Snow. These packages will only
improve the plotting choices under Python. I just wanted to express my
pleasure at using DISLIN under Python and encourage others who may be
frustrated about their ability to produce quality output now or who
may be holding back from adopting Python as their interactive
analysis environment to check out DISLIN and see for yourself if it will
serve you.
-Travis
P.S. The dislin homepage is
http://www.linmpi.mpg.de/dislin