[Haskell-cafe] Experimenting a new plotting library

[Tim Docker]

Some of the things that increase the complexity of the chart library are:

    - strongly typed axes (the library would be somewhat simpler if all axes were just doubles)
    - achieving a balance between useful defaults and flexibility
    - constraints between distinct visual elements
    - the lack of “first class" text handling in the current diagrams library

I’ll follow your experiments with interest.

Tim


On 5 May 2014, at 3:58 am, Kai Zhang <kai at kzhang.org> wrote:

> Hi Tim,
> 
> Thank you for commenting. As I said before, Chart is a wonderful library. Although it has most features we need, I personally feel that it's cumbersome to make plots or define new plots by Chart. So I would like to experiment a new library which makes this process more natural and intuitive. For example, to make a plot, we can
> 
> 1. generate axes from data by calling:
> 
>     xAxis = realAxis rangeOfX padding opts
>   yAxis = realAxis rangeOfY padding opts
> 
> 2. Assemble axes:
> 
> area = plotArea 5.5 4.8
>        ( yAxis  -- left axis
>        , def  -- top axis, using default axis which is a line
>        , def  -- right axis
>        , xAxis -- bottom axis
>        )
> 
> 3. make delayed plots which are functions. Given a point map provided by plot area, they can generate actual plots.
>  
>    ps = points xs ys def
>    l = line xs ys def
> 
> 3. attach any number and any types of plots to plot area:
> 
>     plot = area <+ (ps, BL) <+ (l, BL)
>     
>     We have four axes in plot area, so you can attach plots to plot area by any two of the axes, for example, you can do
> 
>     area <+ (ps, BR) <+ (l, BL) <+ (l, TL) <+ (l, TR)
> 
> Each intermediate step can be easily customized separately and independently without worrying about other parts. And styling can be done by calling APIs of Diagrams.
> 
> 
> On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 4:10 AM, Tim Docker <tim at dockerz.net> wrote:
> 
> On 3 May 2014, at 7:44 am, Kai Zhang <kai at kzhang.org> wrote:
> 
> > 1. There is few plotting library written in pure Haskell
> > 2. Haskell-chart, one of the most featured library, is hard to extend and there is no straightforward way to compose or modify the plots generated by this library.
> 
> The chart library is pure haskell when using the diagrams backend.
> 
> What do you mean by compose or modify the plots? It’s reasonably straightforward to have it produce a diagram, which can then be composed or modified with any of the diagrams tools. Some sample code is shown below.
> 
> Tim (chart library maintainer)
> 
> 
> {-# LANGUAGE FlexibleContexts #-}
> import Graphics.Rendering.Chart
> import Data.Colour
> import Data.Colour.Names
> import Data.Colour.SRGB
> import Control.Lens
> import Data.Default.Class
> 
> import Graphics.Rendering.Chart.Backend.Diagrams
> import qualified Diagrams.Prelude as D
> import qualified Diagrams.Backend.SVG as D
> 
> chart :: Renderable (LayoutPick Double Double Double)
> chart = layoutToRenderable
>       $ layout_title .~ "Amplitude Modulation"
>       $ layout_plots .~ [toPlot sinusoid1]
>       $ layout_plot_background .~ Just (solidFillStyle $ opaque white)
>       $ def
>   where
>     am x = (sin (x*pi/45) + 1) / 2 * (sin (x*pi/5))
> 
>     sinusoid1 = plot_lines_values .~ [[ (x,(am x)) | x <- [0,(0.5)..400]]]
>               $ plot_lines_style  .~ solidLine 1 (opaque blue)
>               $ plot_lines_title .~"am"
>               $ def
> 
> mkDiagram :: (D.Backend b D.R2, D.Renderable (D.Path D.R2) b) => IO (D.Diagram b D.R2)
> mkDiagram = do
>     env <- defaultEnv vectorAlignmentFns 800 400
>     return (fst (runBackendR env chart))
> 
>