Interactive mode (like Matplotlib) with zooming/panning/click events/clustering?

[Victor Hooi]

Hi,

We currently have a Python script that analyses logfiles, then outputs a scatterplot based on loglines. There are quite a large number of points - sometimes up to 1,000,000 points per logfile.

We use matplotlib for the scatterplot, which has an interactive-output mode to handle click events on points, as well as zoom/panning:

Would an interactive mode similar to Matplotlib, that supported panning/zooming be a possible feature for Plotinum in the future?

Also, do you have any thoughts on how Plotinum would handle a large number of points like that? At higher zoom levels, it doesn't make sense to plot all the points - however, you'd need some kind of clustering algorithm (I'm hoping that's the right terminology...lol) to group nearby points, then reveal them as you zoom in.

Currently, Plotinum only outputs to static files (PDF, EPS, SVG, PNG etc.), so clustering with zooming doesn't make sense now. But what do you think of a feature like that, that automatically grouped nearby points?

Regards,

Victor

[Ethan Burns]

Hi Victor,

I have always wanted Plotinum to support interactive plotting, but it's probably not something that I will ever do. I am not adding new features to Plotinum. I am mostly sticking to fixing issues that I can do in an hour or so, nothing more.

I recommend that you take a look at the efforts of the gonum organization on github.com (a group that I am a relatively inactive member of). They have aspirations to take over Plotinum (see github.com/gonum/plot). The effort has been stalled until fairly recently. In fact I just reviewed a branch by Sebastian Binet (CCed here) to add a backend that plots to an x11 window. It's not interactive, but it's a start. I believe he has also been thinking about an OpenGL backend. That would certainly be a start on an interactive library.

If you wanted to contribute, I am sure they would be happy to have your help.

Ethan

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