[Numpy-discussion] re: Status of Numeric (and plotting in particular)

[Jon Peirce]

>
>
>We have started on this over the past month, and hope to have some 
>simple
>functionality available within a month (though when we make it public 
>may
>take a bit longer). It will be open source and we hope significantly 
>simpler
>than chaco. It will not focus on speed (well, we want fairly fast 
>display times
>for plots of a reasonable number of points, but we don't need video 
>refresh
>rates). If your interest in plotting matches ours, then this may be for 
>you.
>We will welcome contributions and comments once we get it off the 
>ground.
>(We are calling it pyxis by the way).
>

I agree with the sentiment that chaco is a very heavy and confusing 
package for the average scientist (but maybe great for the full-time 
programmer) but I'm really concerned about the idea that we need 
*another* solution started from scratch. There are already so many 
including scipy.gplt, scipy.plt, dislin, biggles, pychart, piddle, 
pgplot, pyx (new)...

In particular MatPlotLib looks promising - check out its examples:
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html
*Many* plotting types already , simple syntax, a few different backends. 
And already has something of a following.

So is it really not possible for STScI to push its resources into aiding 
the development of something that's already begun? Would be great if we 
could develop a single package really well rather than everyone making 
their own.

-- 

Jon Peirce
Nottingham University
+44 (0)115 8467176 (tel)
+44 (0)115 9515324 (fax)

http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/jwp/