Python Graphing Utilities.

[Torsten Bronger]

Hallöchen!

Fernando Perez <fperez.net at gmail.com> writes:

> [...]
>
> Well, it's true that the latex-type (called mathtext) support in
> matplotlib is not really up to par with true latex (kerning is off
> in places, mixed text/math doesn't work well, etc).  I've been
> willing to live with it so far, but an alternative option is to
> use the PS backend and then play psfrag tricks.

The problem is that mostly, you'll have a *lot* to substitute.

> I've yet to experiment with it, but it might (with some additional
> handywork) give final results identical to those of the pslatex
> backend in gnuplot.

What do you mean with this?  Do you want to mimic TeX's quality as a
typesetter, or do you think the goal should be output in real LaTeX
format (like pslatex does)?  The latter would be more useful in my
opinion, and much easier, too.

> [...]  But there are a number of things it simply can't offer due
> to its design as a standalone program, which matplotlib (being a
> library/widget collection) can do much better.  [...] I finally
> made the switch and I'm extremely happy.

I'm not a fanatic Gnuplot user either.  I use it for 11 years, and I
like exactly two things about it: its simplicity and the pslatex
backend.  I think for my thesis I'll still use it, because its
integration in a batch process that builds my thesis is much easier
than to write Python programs.

But if you have measurement programs in Python (I work in a project
making this feasible) with on-line plots with mpl, it'd be nice to
have the possibility to direct them to a file for high-quality
typesetting as well.

Tschö,
Torsten.

-- 
Torsten Bronger, aquisgrana, europa vetus