[Pythonmac-SIG] plotting package for MacOS?

[David Ascher]

On Fri, 22 Jan 1999, Joseph J. Strout wrote:

> Any recommendations on a plotting package for MacOS?  I'm especially
> interested in scientific plots, i.e., I want to replace Matlab with NumPy,
> but I need Matlab's powerful graphing and plotting capabilities.
> 
> I looked over the list at
> 	http://starship.skyport.net/crew/jhauser/plot-res.html
> 
> but none of them sound too promising.

FYI, also look at:
 
  http://www.python.org/topics/scicomp/plotting.html

> If none is available -- and assuming I can convince my boss to let us stick
> with Python anyway -- then I'll be writing one.  The idea I've been kicking
> around involves a plot object to which you assign functions to do the
> low-level drawing (lines, polygons, text, etc.).  So the plot engine would
> be portable; you'd just plug in functions to use your native drawing
> commands (or not -- maybe you'd plug in postscript drawing commands, or
> gdmodule (GIF) functions, or whatever).
> 
> But that's the sort of thing the plot-sig is presumably interested in... is
> there already such a package in the works?

I am working on something called Snow: 

  http://starship.skyport.net/~da/Snow/

I've been working on it recently, but only as I need specific features
(the downside of scratch-an-itch development). I really *will* release
this when I've fixed the most significant design flaws that I know of.  I
don't think any of them are extremely hard to fix, I just need time to
focus on them from a higher vantage point than I have been able to
recently.  As it stands, I keep having to muck with the framework when I
tackle a new plot -- it's just not useable by anyone but me, I fear.

There's no reason it shouldn't work under MacOS, although my favorite mode
of usage (OpenGL within a Tk widget) won't work until someone writes a
Togl-like widget for the Mac.  Now *that* would be a good contribution
from a mac hacker.  (Togl is at:
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~brianp/Togl.html)

--david

PS: I've been amazed at how hard it is to do plotting right.  Serves me
    right for being so arrogant about it for so many years.