matplotlib is a 2D plotting library for python for use in scripts, applications, interactive shell work or web application servers. matplotlib 0.98.3 is a major but stable release which brings many new features detailed below.
Homepage: http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/ Downloads: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=80706&package_id=278194&release_id=617552 Screenshots: http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html Thanks to Charlie Moad for the release and for all the matplotlib developers for the feature enhancements and bug fixes. The following "what's new" summary is also online at http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/whats_new.html. What's new ========== delaunay triangularization Jeffrey Whitaker has added support for gridding irregularly spaced data using the Matlab (TM) equivalent griddata function. This is a long-standing feature request for matplotlib and a major enhancement. matplotlib now ships with Robert Kern's delaunay triangularization code (BSD license), which supports the default griddata implementation, but there are some known corner cases where this routine fails. As such, Jeff has provided a python wrapper to the NCAR natgrid routines, whose licensing terms are a bit murkier, for those who need bullet proof gridding routines. If the NCAR toolkit is installed, griddata will detect it and use it. See http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.mlab.html#-griddata for details. Thanks Robert and Jeff. proper paths For the first time, matplotlib supports spline paths across backends, so you can pretty much draw anything. See the http://matplotlib.sf.net/screenshots.html#path_patch_demo. Thanks to Michael Droettboom and http://www.stsci.edu (STScI). better transformations In what has been described as open-heart surgery on matplotlib, Michael Droettboom, supported by http://www.stsci.edu (STSci) , has rewritten the transformation infrastructure from the ground up, which not only makes the code more intuitive, it supports custom user projections and scales. See http://matplotlib.sf.net/doc/devel/add_new_projection.rst and the http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.transforms.html module documentation. histogram enhancements hist (http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.pyplot.html#-hist) can handle 2D arrays and create side-by-side or stacked histograms, as well as cumulative filled and unfilled histograms; see http://matplotlib.sf.net/examples/pylab_examples/histogram_demo_extended.py ginput function ginput (http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.pyplot.html#-ginput) is a blocking function for interactive use to get input from the user. A long requested feature submitted by Gael Varoquaux. See http://matplotlib.sf.net/examples/pylab_examples/ginput_demo.py wind barbs Ryan May has added support for wind barbs, which are popular among meterologists. These are similar to direction fields or quiver plots but contain extra information about wind speed and other attributes. See http://matplotlib.sf.net/examples/pylab_examples/barb_demo.py external backends backend developers and users can now use custom backends outside the matplotlib tree, by using the special syntax module://my_backend for the backend setting in the rc file, the use directive, or in -d command line argument to pylab/pyplot scripts findobj Introduced a recursive object search method to find all objects that meet some matching criterion, ef to find all text instances in a figure. See http://matplotlib.sf.net/examples/pylab_examples/findobj_demo.py saving transparent figures http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.pyplot.html#-savefig now supports a *transparent* keyword argument to set the figure an axes backgrounds transparent. Useful when you want to embed matplotlib figures with transparent backgrounds into other documents axes3d support removed Amid considerable controversy from the users, we decided to pull the experimental 3D support from matplotlib. Although basic 3D support remains a goal, the 3D support we had was mainly orphaned, and we need a developer with interest to step up and maintain it. mathtext outside matplotlib The mathtext support in matplotlib is very good, and some folks want to be able to use it outside of matplotlib figures. We added some helper functions to get the mathtext rendered pixel buffer as a numpy array, with an example at http://matplotlib.sf.net/examples/api/mathtext_asarray.py image optimizations enhancements to speed up color mapping and panning and zooming on dense images better savefig http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.pyplot.html#-savefig now supports save to file handles (great for web app servers) or unicode filenames on all backends record array functions some more helper functions to facilitate work with record arrays: http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.mlab.html#-rec_groupby, http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.mlab.html#-rec2txt, http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.mlab.html#-rec_summarize accurate elliptical arcs In support of the http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/phoenix/main.php (Phoenix mission) to Mars, which used matplotlib in ground tracking of the spacecraft, Michael Droettboom built on work by Charlie Moad to provide an extremely accurate 8-spline approximation to elliptical arcs http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.patches.html#Arc-draw in the viewport. This provides a scale free, accurate graph of the arc regardless of zoom level. See http://matplotlib.sf.net/screenshots.html#ellipse_demo imread enhanced imread (http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.image.html) now will use PIL when available to load images and return numpy arrays postscript enhancements the postscript backend has clipping to paths (useful for polar plots PDF enhancements The PDF backend handles composite glyphs properly, usetex fixes SVG enhancements clip to path (useful for polar plots), inkscape cut-and-paste fixes. QT enhancements Fixed a duplicate draw bug that slowed performance. Native qt toolbars and status bars used for the toolbar controls. bug fixes and minor enhancements Lots of bug fixes and feature enhancements: memory leaks, math rendering, UI specific problems, dpi scaling problems, better support for relative font sizes, patch collections, better http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.pyplot.html#-pie chart label alignment, better baseline text alignment support, support for image downsampling, more better http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.pyplot.html#-hist functionality, image rendering fixes... For details, see http://matplotlib.sf.net/CHANGELOG -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
