Please, can you compare PyQTGraph and Chaco capabilities?

[Jose Borreguero]

Dear PyQTGraph  developers,

I am looking for an interactive plotting library that I can embed in a GUI developed with PyQT. I am thinking of a plot widget where you can do things with the mouse like zooming, also popping up of menus in order to change the format of the labels and axis properties, export the figure to PNG. Maybe also selecting a curve by clicking next to it. Also, the plot contents will update regularly as new data is available.Lots of handy stuff!

I have found Chaco and PyQTGraph, but I don't know how they differ, or how they would fare when trying to implement the features I wrote above. I want to make an informed decision and stick with one of the two, I don't have the required time to learn both :( . Can you please please give me some examples where PyQTGraph does better than Chaco (or the other way around)?


-Jose

[Luke Campagnola]

On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 11:02 AM, Jose Borreguero <borre...@gmail.com> wrote: 

I have found Chaco and PyQTGraph, but I don't know how they differ, or how they would fare when trying to implement the features I wrote above. I want to make an informed decision and stick with one of the two, I don't have the required time to learn both :( . Can you please please give me some examples where PyQTGraph does better than Chaco (or the other way around)?

I am embarrassed to admit I have never used Chaco, so I cannot provide a direct comparison of features. Perhaps others on the list will have more perspective. The main benefit of PyQtGraph over Chaco is that the former is pure-python, which makes it easier to install on a variety of platforms and easier to access, introspect, and modify the code.

 

I am looking for an interactive plotting library that I can embed in a GUI developed with PyQT. I am thinking of a plot widget where you can do things with the mouse like zooming, also popping up of menus in order to change the format of the labels and axis properties, export the figure to PNG. Maybe also selecting a curve by clicking next to it. Also, the plot contents will update regularly as new data is available.Lots of handy stuff!

All of these features are possible in PyQtGraph, and some are already implemented. Interactive zooming, context menus, and export are there; Qt provides selection of objects; and the context menus have many features, but probably not everything you are looking for.

I would recommend just running through the examples to get a sense of the features PyQtGraph provides.

Luke

 

[Steven Silvester]

I started with Matplotlib, then went to Chaco for speed and Traits integration. I implemented most of those features in Chaco, but ran into too many API headaches and poor design choices. Within two weeks of switching to PyQtGraph I had not only replaced all of my Chaco features, but had improved roi tools and more intuitive controls and API across the board. I also replaced my need for Mayavi ( also incredibly frustrating to work with), for rendering point clouds. In short, Luke and PyQtGraph are amazing.

[Jose Borreguero]

Thanks for the answers, it seems PyQTGraph has most, if not all, of the features I'm interested in. I will go  through the examples as suggested.

-Jose