plot - Python plotting libraries

47
votes

What alternatives are there to pylab for plotting in Python? In particular, I'm looking for something that doesn't use the stateful model that pylab does.

8
pythonplotmatplotlib

8 Answers

28
votes

You can always use the object-oriented framework for Matplotlib instead of the pylab interface.

47
votes

Plotly lets you make graphs using a Python API, matplotlib, and pandas. Their IPython gallery has some example scientific graphs with the Python scripts that generated them.

Here's a sample:

enter image description here

Some recent exciting open source offerings:

  • ggplot is based on R's ggplot2, with aesthetically pleasing defaults and a really concise api. wants to be a matplotlib killer

ggplot example

  • bokeh makes interactive (html canvas) plots. emphasis on interativity + handling big data

bokeh example

  • vega translates JSON "plot descriptions" into SVG or Canvas-based interactive plots, and vincent is a declarative interface for generating the JSON specifications.

vega example

3
votes

I have used Gnuplot.py with great success.

3
votes

I was in need of gnuplot interface for Python 3 but have found nothing. So I have ported Gnuplot.py to it. See more info in the 'readme' of the [repository]. Hope this will help someone else in future.

2
votes

There is also a old program for automating the reading, filtering, processing, interpolation and plot n-dimensional values from different sources (like libreOffice- or csv-files) and variable size: diaGrabber.

You have to use some simple python-commands to create a case. After this you can manipulate the graphical output in an interactive GUI.

1
votes

You can use simple gplot

1
votes

MathGL is free (GPL) plotting library with large set of graphics types, and have Python interface too (also can use numpy arrays).