Dotnet matplotlib

Development Contributing
1

This is aimed at the matplotlib Devs and to gauge community interest.

Would there be interest in development of a Nuget package of matplotlib?

I have personally implemented plotting for my own project as a .Net standard 2 library using gnuplot. Part of the ideas I implemented, mirror some of the ideas in matplotlib (and octave etc) since matlab is where I started learning working with discrete data.
The extension up to a full matplotlib implementation in .Net Standard 2 would take a lot of effort but I would be quite interested in doing so.
.Net has got some impressive capabilities in data handling and modelling etc. but it has a major weakness with regard to plotting etc. so there is a place for a matplotlib implementation in the community.
Yes, I know there is the option of just running python code but for my use case that wasn’t optimal at all. I was generating GBs of data in simulations and when I wanted to plot that data, I needed the ability to plot against a model for comparisons.
As the model was much faster to generate, it shouldn’t be necessary to also store the model data as well as the simulation data, which would have been the easiest way using python execution to use matplotlib. Instead, with plotting in csharp I can just store the relevant simulation data and when plotting generate the model data on the fly to be plotted as a comparison.

I look forward to everyone’s input.

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Are you suggesting to re-write Matplotlib in C# or to provide a layer that lets you make calls to Matplotlb from a C# process?

If the second, the first think you need to make sure there is working is a version of numpy (and c-extensions generically). It was my understanding that in the CLR space there was iornpython, but it was still a python2 dialect and did not support c-extenions at all.

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First Prize would be to have an implementation in dotnet native.
There is also numpy nuget these days for dotnet although I’m not sure it would be necessary for First Prize case.

Having an interface is also possible although the idea loses much of its luster in this root.

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If you want to lead a re-implementation for Matplotlib in .net, then have at it!

While I don’t think we should host that on the Matplotlib github organization, I suspect that people here would be happy to talk to you about any questions you have about our API or internal designs.

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Of course it would live need to live in its own repo.
But the background on implementation would make it iterate must faster.
Thanks I’ll get going on it.