[matplotlib-devel] ANN: matplotlib-0.50

[John H. <jdh...@ac...>]

What's new in matplotlib 0.50

Antigrain backend: Agg

  Adding to the growing list of image backends is Antigrain --
  http://antigrain.com. This is a backend written mostly in extension
  code and is the fastest of all the image backends. Agg supports
  freetype fonts, antialiased drawing, alpha blending, and much
  more. The windows installer contains everything you need except
  Numeric to use the agg backend out of the box; for other platforms
  see http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/backends.html#Agg

Paint/libart backend

  David Moore wrote a backend for pypaint, a libart wrapper. libart is
  a high quality, cross platform image renderer that supports
  antialiased lines, freetype fonts, and other capabilities to soon be
  exploited. Thanks David! See
  http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/backends.html#Paint for more
  information and install instructions

The Matplotlib FAQ

  Matplotlib now has a FAQ -- http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/faq.html

Alpha channel attribute

  All the figure elements now have an alpha attribute to allow
  blending and translucency. Not all backends are currenly capable of
  supporting alpha - currently only Agg, but Paint should be able to
  support this soon - see the scatter screenshot for an example of
  alpha at work
  http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html#scatter_demo2

Table class added

  John Gill has developed a very nice Table class and table function
  that plays well with bar charts and stacked bar charts. See example
  code and screenshot table_demo at
  http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html#table_demo

New plot commands cla and clf

  Clear the current axes or figure. Useful in interactive plotting
  from a python shell

GD module on win32

  With much weeping and gnashing of teeth and help from half the
  people on this globe, built a gdmodule win32 installer. Special
  thanks to Stefan Kuzminski for putting up with my endless windows
  confusions. See the win32 quickstart at installing the GD backend -
  http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/backends.html#GDWIN32

GD supports clipping and antialiased line drawing

  See instructions about upgrading gd and gdmodule at Installing the
  GD backend. The line object has a new 'antialiased' property, that
  if True, the backend will render the line antialiased if
  supported. Note antialiased drawing under GD is slow, so be sure to
  turn the property off set(lines, 'antialiased', False) if you
  experience performance problems. If you need performance and
  antialiasing, use the agg backend.

Wild and wonderful bar charts

  You can provide an optional argument bottom to the bar command to
  determine where the bottom of each bar is, default 0 for all. This
  enables stacked bar plots and candelstick plots --
  examples/bar_stacked.py. Thanks to David Moore and John Gill for
  suggestions and code.

Figure backend refactored

  The figure functionality was split into a backend independent
  component Figure and a backend dependent component
  FigureCanvasBase. This completes the transition to a totally
  abstract figure interface and improves the ability the switch
  backends and a figure to multiple backends. See API_CHANGES for
  information on migrating applications to the new API at
  http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/API_CHANGES

Tons of bug fixes and optimizations detailed at
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/whats_new.html