Re: [Matplotlib-users] Basemap OO interface

[Jeff W. <js...@fa...>]

Michael Brady wrote:

> Hi Jeff and Basemap users,
>
> Here at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, we're very happy Basemap 
> users. We've been using it to create plots of spacecraft launch 
> trajectory ground tracks.
>
> I've just attempted to upgrade from basemap 0.2 to 0.5. I have a problem.
>
> The basemap 0.2 interface worked with an Axes object that you supplied 
> explicitly:
>
>    axes = figure.add_axes( ... )
>    bMap = Basemap( ... )
>
>    bMap.drawcoastlines( axes )
>    bMap.drawcountries( axes )
>    bMap.fillcontinents( axes )
>
> The basemap 0.5 interface has changed so that you don't pass in an 
> Axes object to Basemap functions.  Instead, functions are called like so:
>
>    bMap.drawcoastlines()
>    bMap.drawcountries()
>    bMap.fillcontinents()
>
> and inside each function there's a call to mpylab.gca(), so that the 
> map gets drawn on the pylab current axes.
>
> Our software is written without any dependencies on pylab, so we are 
> unable to upgrade to basemap 0.5.
>
> For us, it's important to have a pure OO-interface.  Jeff, would it be 
> possible to restore the v0.2 Basemap class interface which doesn't 
> make any pylab calls?


Michael:  By popular demand, I put this back in 0.5.1.  You can now pass 
an axes instance to any Basemap method.  The default is 'ax=None', in 
which case pylab.gca is used to get the current one.  Does this solve 
your problem?

>
> (Another less important question:  why did the name of the basemap 
> data directory change from 'basemap' to 'basemap-pyVERSION'?  Is there 
> something python-version-specific in there?)


This is for package managers like apt and rpm which have different 
packages for different python versions.  If the directory name is the 
same, the packages will collide with each other.  The other way to solve 
this is to have a separate package for the data files, but I thought 
this was easier.

-Jeff

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