What's new in matplotlib 0.50
Antigrain backend: Agg
Adding to the growing list of image backends is Antigrain --
http://antigrain.com. This is a backend written mostly in extension
code and is the fastest of all the image backends. Agg supports
freetype fonts, antialiased drawing, alpha blending, and much
more. The windows installer contains everything you need except
Numeric to use the agg backend out of the box; for other platforms
see http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/backends.html#Agg
Paint/libart backend
David Moore wrote a backend for pypaint, a libart wrapper. libart is
a high quality, cross platform image renderer that supports
antialiased lines, freetype fonts, and other capabilities to soon be
exploited. Thanks David! See
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/backends.html#Paint for more
information and install instructions
The Matplotlib FAQ
Matplotlib now has a FAQ -- http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/faq.html
Alpha channel attribute
All the figure elements now have an alpha attribute to allow
blending and translucency. Not all backends are currenly capable of
supporting alpha - currently only Agg, but Paint should be able to
support this soon - see the scatter screenshot for an example of
alpha at work
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html#scatter_demo2
Table class added
John Gill has developed a very nice Table class and table function
that plays well with bar charts and stacked bar charts. See example
code and screenshot table_demo at
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/screenshots.html#table_demo
New plot commands cla and clf
Clear the current axes or figure. Useful in interactive plotting
from a python shell
GD module on win32
With much weeping and gnashing of teeth and help from half the
people on this globe, built a gdmodule win32 installer. Special
thanks to Stefan Kuzminski for putting up with my endless windows
confusions. See the win32 quickstart at installing the GD backend -
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/backends.html#GDWIN32
GD supports clipping and antialiased line drawing
See instructions about upgrading gd and gdmodule at Installing the
GD backend. The line object has a new 'antialiased' property, that
if True, the backend will render the line antialiased if
supported. Note antialiased drawing under GD is slow, so be sure to
turn the property off set(lines, 'antialiased', False) if you
experience performance problems. If you need performance and
antialiasing, use the agg backend.
Wild and wonderful bar charts
You can provide an optional argument bottom to the bar command to
determine where the bottom of each bar is, default 0 for all. This
enables stacked bar plots and candelstick plots --
examples/bar_stacked.py. Thanks to David Moore and John Gill for
suggestions and code.
Figure backend refactored
The figure functionality was split into a backend independent
component Figure and a backend dependent component
FigureCanvasBase. This completes the transition to a totally
abstract figure interface and improves the ability the switch
backends and a figure to multiple backends. See API_CHANGES for
information on migrating applications to the new API at
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/API_CHANGES
Tons of bug fixes and optimizations detailed at
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/whats_new.html