I have a Python script that generates an interactive matplotlib plot with several sliders and radio buttons using the matplotlib.widgets submodule. I'd like to let others play with the resulting plot without having to install python, scipy, numpy, and matplotlib.
I first tried converting my python script to a stand-alone executable that I could distribute. This turned out to be a nightmare - every package I tried (pyinstaller, py2exe, cx_Freeze) failed for one reason or another. The main issue I had was with integrating various scipy and matplotlib libraries, and I'm now very pessimistic about successfully "freezing" my interactive plot.
My next idea was to see if I could get some interactivity through a web browser. Using an IPython notebook with the third-party package JSAnimation initially seemed very promising (http://nbviewer.ipython.org/github/jakevdp/JSAnimation/blob/master/animation_example.ipynb), but it seems that the package only supports the matplotlib "animate" function. This doesn't quite fit the bill for what I'd like to do, as I have multiple sliders which 1) doesn't seem to be supported by this package, and 2) even if supported, would likely result in too many static figures to pre-render effectively, since any such arrangement would require snapshots for every possible combination of the three variables.
Any ideas for how to get this interactive matplotlib plot to others without requiring them to install Python?
Related
I'm using matplotlib 2.2.2. with ipython 3.6.5 (both from anaconda) for data analysis. Whenever I create a figure window with some boilerplate code like
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.ion()
plt.plot()
I get a nice figure window to which I can only switch focus by using with the mouse. These figure windows are not part of the list of macosx application switcher (accessible through cmd+tab shortcut). I've tried the osx and the qt5 backends, but I get the same results as described before.
Do you know any solution/workaround for this? It would be very practical to be able to switch focus between figure windows from the keyboard, as I often find myself browsing through the figure windows looking for the graph I'm interested in. Moreover, if matplotlib's figure windows were actual cocoa/macos windows, it would be extremely useful to those out there who use tiling window managers on osx.
I'm writing a program for TopSpin, an NMR processing software from Bruker. TopSpin runs the python scripts in it's own environment using jython. The python version it returns is 2.5.* (I don't remember the last one).
import sys
print(sys.version)
>> 2.5.*
As the code is executed in it's own environment, I cannot update the version of python/jython and I also cannot install missing packages.
For my current project I would need a functionality to plot the values of two lists. The first list on the x-axis and the second one on the y-axis.
For this task I wanted to use matplotlib's function plot(xlist, ylist). Unfortunately TopSpin throws an error at me, saying that the package matplotlib does not exist. As I can't install the package (or at least I have no idea how I should), I now need a workaround.
Is there a way I could call a python script that runs in the normal environment of my computer (like idle) where python 3.6.3 and matplotlib are installed? Ideally this could generate the plot and ship it back to the TopSpin python program.
Or is there an other workaround that enables me to plot my data and show it to the user/save it on the disk, that does not rely on fancy or new packages?
I have been working with IPython for several months now and I think it is one of the best interactive shells I've used. I especially like the built in matplotlib support through pylab.
One issue I have had is that I am working with image analysis and often plot images and other arrays using imshow. When using pure matplotlib, I have the ability to set the default interpolation as nearest using the matplotlibrc file. I have not been able to find such a file for the built in matplotlib in IPython.
Is there a way to configure IPython and Pylab to use nearest interpolation by default instead of bilinear? I have read the IPython documentation regarding configuration and customization and I'm not sure I follow how to access such specific properties.
I currently have a GUI built in wxPython with several sections, one of which displays a .png image of a plot:
self.plot = wx.BitmapButton(self.pane_system, -1, wx.Bitmap("/home/myname/projects/newton/plot/src/graph.png", wx.BITMAP_TYPE_ANY))
In another part of the GUI, there is a place where I can edit parameters. The current setup is that When I change the parameters and press enter, the code tells Gnuplot to re-plot and save the new plot to the graph.png file, then update the GUI to show the updated image.
I have several general questions:
I want to migrate gnuplot to matplotlib for the following reason: If I use gnuplot, the machine that is running the executable must have gnuplot installed on their machine. On the other hand, matplotlib is a python module, so I don't have to worry about installing graphical packages on the other machines. Is this assumption correct?
How can I modify my wxPython GUI window to show the matplotlib plot? I found tutorials several telling me how to create a new panel with a matplotlib plot, but I would like to simply have it appear where the old plot was. I think I can make matplotlib save the plot to an image file just as I did in gnuplot. Is it generally a good idea to save the plot as an image and update the GUI, or are there other (faster) best practices for updating plots? One drawback of using image files (as in the above code) is that they do not resize when I resize the GUI window.
If I package this as an executable, will I have to install wxPython/Python on a Windows machine to make the executable run?
Taking your questions in order:
1.) Yes matplotlib is a contained python module. It does have external dependancies but in Windows these dependencies are packaged with the matplotlib install. Do you need to worry about these when you install on other machines? That depends on how you are going to install. Are you packing to an exe? Having the end users install Python and matplotlib? As an example you can package matplotlib into your exe with py2exe, see here. Of course you'll have to customize those scripts for your backend, wx.
2.) You are seeing the panels with plots because matplotlib provides the FigureCanvasWxAgg, which is a wxWidget derived from wxPanel that plays nice with matplotlib. The advantages of using it are that you can set handlers for stuff like resize and painting.
Your wxBitMapButton, though is looking for a wxBitmap for the image. You might be able to give it a file handle (cStringIO.StringIO) to a matplotlib plot and eliminate the need to write a file to disk. You also could probably hook it's resize event and get matplotlib to redraw the figure to the appropriate size. You aren't going to have the amount of flexibility as using the FigureCanvasWxAgg. I can't research any of this, though, as it seems the wxPython web-site is down.
3.) You can package wxPython into executable. How depends on what packager you are using. I've done this with py2exe many times.
Is it possible to use any chart modules with wxpython? And are there any good ones out there?
I'm thinking of the likes of PyCha (http://www.lorenzogil.com/projects/pycha/) or any equivalent. Many modules seem to require PyCairo, but I can't figure out if I can use those with my wxpython app.
My app has a notebook pane, and I'd like to place the chart inside it. The chart has to be dynamic -- ie the user can choose what kind of data to view -- so I'm guessing modules that make chart images are out.
Just for clarity, by charts I mean things like pies, lines and bars etc.
I recently revisited matplotlib, and am pretty happy with the results.
If you're on windows, there are windows installers available to make your installation process a little less painful.
One potential drawback though is that it requires numpy to be installed.
I don't have experience with the interactivity of it, but it does support event handling.
matplotlib does embed quite well in wxpython. I have only used it in Tkinter, which went smoothly for me. I like the optional toolbar that allows direct manipulation of the plot (resizing and panning and such)
Use matplotlib. It integrates nicely with wxPython. Here's a sample of an interactive chart with wxPython and matplotlib.