Re: [matplotlib-devel] Request for feedback regarding creation of a plot-type object.

[Jordan D. <fre...@oc...>]

> Before you go off in this direction, could you outline how you think 
> colormaps should work? From the sounds of it, you are addressing 
> mostly cases where users have specifically picked colors and you would 
> like colorbar() to work with the selected colors. Generally speaking, 
> you seem to be concerned with discrete color sets. But colormaps were 
> primarily directed towards image display where a nearly continuous 
> range of levels might be encountered. So could you explain how you 
> would handle colormaps for images?

I think that there should essentially be 2 seperate systems, one for 
discrete color sets and one for colormaps.  I think colormaps work great 
for things like image data or continuous data where transitions between 
levels are less important than getting a general feeling of magnitude 
and structure.  Discrete contour levels are better for showing where a 
set of data exceeds threshold values.  So both should be useable, but 
currently the architecture is focused on using colormaps.

As it stands, colorbar() seems perfectly usable if you are working with 
colormaps--I'm not sure about this though, because I almost never use 
colormaps in my figures.  So I wouldn't change anything about colormaps 
for images: this is an extension of the functionality, not a modification.

Jordan