Re: [Matplotlib-users] Matplotlib history

[Benjamin R. <ben...@ou...>]

For those interested, I have found the release announcement that introduced
the jet colormap: http://ehc.ac/p/matplotlib/mailman/message/188760/ . We
have someone named "Perry" to blame... :-P

Ben Root


On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 9:01 PM, Benjamin Root <ben...@ou...> wrote:

> Just to keep my notes in one place... from Matplotlib's "Introduction"
> page is prose that I assume was written by John:
>
> For years, I used to use MATLAB exclusively for data analysis and
> visualization. MATLAB excels at making nice looking plots easy. When I
> began working with EEG data, I found that I needed to write applications to
> interact with my data, and developed and EEG analysis application in
> MATLAB. As the application grew in complexity, interacting with databases,
> http servers, manipulating complex data structures, I began to strain
> against the limitations of MATLAB as a programming language, and decided to
> start over in Python. Python more than makes up for all of MATLAB’s
> deficiencies as a programming language, but I was having difficulty finding
> a 2D plotting package (for 3D VTK <http://www.vtk.org/> more than exceeds
> all of my needs).
>
> When I went searching for a Python plotting package, I had several
> requirements:
>
>    - Plots should look great - publication quality. One important
>    requirement for me is that the text looks good (antialiased, etc.)
>    - Postscript output for inclusion with TeX documents
>    - Embeddable in a graphical user interface for application development
>    - Code should be easy enough that I can understand it and extend it
>    - Making plots should be easy
>
> Finding no package that suited me just right, I did what any
> self-respecting Python programmer would do: rolled up my sleeves and dived
> in. Not having any real experience with computer graphics, I decided to
> emulate MATLAB’s plotting capabilities because that is something MATLAB
> does very well. This had the added advantage that many people have a lot of
> MATLAB experience, and thus they can quickly get up to steam plotting in
> python. From a developer’s perspective, having a fixed user interface (the
> pylab interface) has been very useful, because the guts of the code base
> can be redesigned without affecting user code.
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 11:51 PM, Benjamin Root <ben...@ou...> wrote:
>
>> Fernando,
>>
>> This information is going to be the preface of my book on using
>> matplotlib for making an interactive application (sorry, no IPython, the
>> editor wanted to keep the scope tight). So, what I am looking for are some
>> of the major interactive features (who supplied them, and their
>> reasons/purpose). Also, how has interactive matplotlib supported uses "in
>> the wild" such as the Mars Phoenix Lander and recently, the ISEE3 reboot
>> project (that abandoned satellite that was recently revived by citizen
>> scientists).
>>
>> Of, course, any insights to John's original needs/use cases in the early
>> years would be very valuable as well. I could have sworn he has written
>> such missives on the mailing lists, but I can't seem to find them.
>>
>> Cheers!
>> Ben Root
>> On Jul 30, 2014 11:21 PM, "Fernando Perez" <fpe...@gm...> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Ben,
>>>
>>> if by interactive plotting you refer to using it interactively via
>>> ipython and other such systems, there's a good part of that history that is
>>> spread somewhere between the early mpl and ipython archives AND John's and
>>> my personal inboxes.
>>>
>>> A good chunk of that (not all, mind you, since many others contributed)
>>> happened with John and I working on it, and sadly he's not with us and I
>>> had a loss of my early email (anything older than 2005) when I left the
>>> University of Colorado.
>>>
>>> I'd be happy to answer some questions if you have them, to the best of
>>> my memory. Probably quicker over skype/phone, ping me directly (at my
>>> Berkeley address) if you want.
>>>
>>> Cheers
>>>
>>> f
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jul 30, 2014 at 7:20 PM, Benjamin Root <ben...@ou...> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hello all,
>>>>
>>>> I am trying to put together notes for a writeup on a short history of
>>>> matplotlib (in particular, its uses for interactive plotting). I have John
>>>> Hunter's SciPy 2012 Keynote, which helps, but I was hoping for some other
>>>> sources.
>>>>
>>>> Unfortunately, searching for "matplotlib" and "history" gets me lots of
>>>> results on our trials and tribulations with version control...
>>>>
>>>> Anybody have anything bookmarked?
>>>>
>>>> Cheers!
>>>> Ben Root
>>>>
>>>> P.S. - Yes... this is for a book. Stay tuned!
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Fernando Perez (@fperez_org; http://fperez.org)
>>> fperez.net-at-gmail: mailing lists only (I ignore this when swamped!)
>>> fernando.perez-at-berkeley: contact me here for any direct mail
>>>
>>
>