plot() not using alpha value from RGBA tuple

Community matplotlib-users
1

Hi,

I’m trying to fade some data, using alpha values, that I am plotting with Axes.plot(). I can recreate this problem with 1 line of pylab.plot. If I use

pylab.plot([1,2,3],[1,4,9], color=(1,0,0,.2), linewidth=7)

then I get the equivalent of

pylab.plot([1,2,3],[1,4,9], color=(1,0,0), linewidth=7)

i.e. it does not use the alpha value. However, if instead I use

pylab.plot([1,2,3],[1,4,9], color=(1,0,0), linewidth=7, alpha=.2)

then the line is faded out appropriately. The plot documentation indicates that RGBA tuples should be valid, so I’m wondering if this is a bug. Maybe alpha is defaulting to 1 or None and then not being overwritten if color is a 4-tuple?

I’m using Arch Linux with kernel 2.6.39, matplotlib 1.0.1 from the Arch repo, and the Qt4 backend. My installed Qt version is 4.7.3, and I am using KDE 4.6.5. Below is verbose-debug output. Thanks for any help!

Ben

$HOME=/home/ben
CONFIGDIR=/home/ben/.matplotlib
matplotlib data path /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data
loaded rc file /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data/matplotlibrc

matplotlib version 1.0.1
verbose.level debug
interactive is False
units is False
platform is linux2
loaded modules: [‘heapq’, ‘numpy.core.info’, ‘distutils’, ‘numpy.lib.format’, ‘functools’, ‘pylab’, ‘_bisect’, ‘subprocess’, ‘sysconfig’, ‘gc’, ‘matplotlib.tempfile’, ‘distutils.sysconfig’, ‘ctypes._endian’, ‘encodings.encodings’, ‘pyparsing’, ‘matplotlib.colors’, ‘numpy.core.numerictypes’, ‘numpy.testing.sys’, ‘numpy.lib.future’, ‘numpy.fft.types’, ‘numpy.ma.cPickle’, ‘struct’, ‘numpy.matrixlib.defmatrix’, ‘numpy.random.info’, ‘tempfile’, ‘numpy.compat.types’, ‘pprint’, ‘numpy.linalg’, ‘matplotlib.threading’, ‘numpy.core.machar’, ‘numpy.testing.types’, ‘numpy.testing’, ‘collections’, ‘numpy.polynomial.sys’, ‘unittest.sys’, ‘numpy.core.umath’, ‘unittest.main’, ‘distutils.types’, ‘numpy.testing.operator’, ‘numpy.core.scalarmath’, ‘numpy.ma.sys’, ‘zipimport’, ‘string’, ‘matplotlib.subprocess’, ‘numpy.testing.os’, ‘unittest.functools’, ‘numpy.lib.arraysetops’, ‘numpy.testing.unittest’, ‘numpy.lib.math’, ‘encodings.utf_8’, ‘matplotlib.future’, ‘unittest.types’, ‘unittest.util’, 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‘matplotlib.cPickle’, ‘math’, ‘numpy.fft.helper’, ‘fcntl’, ‘unittest.case’, ‘matplotlib.numpy’, ‘UserDict’, ‘unittest.suite’, ‘numpy.lib.function_base’, ‘distutils.os’, ‘matplotlib’, ‘numpy.fft.numpy’, ‘exceptions’, ‘numpy.lib.info’, ‘ctypes’, ‘numpy.lib.warnings’, ‘ctypes.struct’, ‘codecs’, ‘numpy.core._sort’, ‘numpy.os’, ‘unittest.loader’, ‘_functools’, ‘_locale’, ‘numpy.builtin’, ‘matplotlib.os’, ‘thread’, ‘StringIO’, ‘numpy.core.memmap’, ‘traceback’, ‘numpy.testing.warnings’, ‘weakref’, ‘itertools’, ‘numpy.fft.fftpack’, ‘numpy.linalg.lapack_lite’, ‘numpy.ma’, ‘distutils.sys’, ‘os’, ‘marshal’, ‘numpy.lib.itertools’, ‘future’, ‘_collections’, ‘urllib’, ‘matplotlib.traceback’, ‘_sre’, ‘unittest’, ‘numpy.core.sys’, ‘numpy.random’, ‘numpy.linalg.numpy’, ‘builtin’, ‘numpy.lib.twodim_base’, ‘numpy.ma.core’, ‘matplotlib.re’, ‘numpy.core.cPickle’, ‘unittest.runner’, ‘operator’, ‘numpy.polynomial.polytemplate’, ‘numpy.core.arrayprint’, ‘distutils.string’, ‘numpy.lib.arrayterator’, ‘select’, 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Using fontManager instance from /home/ben/.matplotlib/fontList.cache
backend Qt4Agg version 0.9.1
findfont: Matching :family=sans-serif:style=normal:variant=normal:weight=normal:stretch=normal:size=medium to Bitstream Vera Sans (/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data/fonts/ttf/Vera.ttf) with score of 0.000000

2

I think that I have found the problem here. Line2D.draw() (and I presume other Artist subclasses) calls

gc.set_foreground(self._color)
…
gc.set_alpha(self._alpha)

self._color is defined by the color kwarg, whether it be a hex value, 3-tuple, 4-tuple, or something else. self._alpha is defined by the alpha kwarg, but if the alpha kwarg is None, it is not overwritten with color[3]. Therefore, using color=(R,G,B,A) does not set alpha correctly. I’m not sure the best (i.e. most matplotlib-like) way to change this so that the A value gets used iff alpha is None, but I’ve attached a patch that does it one way (diff’ed against the github master, commit 67b1cd650f574f9c53ce). I know the patch is less than ideal, as it adds kwarg-specific handling into a place where none had previously been done, and it’s also in a for loop. Maybe it would be better to do the checking along with the scalex and scaley pops?

Separately, I noticed that backend_bases.GraphicsContextBase.set_foreground claims to only expect an RGB definition, and not an RGBA definition. As such, I think that it should call

self._rgb = colors.colorConverter.to_rgb(fg)

instead of

self._rgb = colors.colorConverter.to_rgba(fg)

since that will make self._rgb a 3-tuple instead of a 4-tuple.

Ben

rgba.patch (883 Bytes)

···

On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 3:13 PM, Ben Breslauer <bbreslauer@…287…> wrote:

Hi,

I’m trying to fade some data, using alpha values, that I am plotting with Axes.plot(). I can recreate this problem with 1 line of pylab.plot. If I use

pylab.plot([1,2,3],[1,4,9], color=(1,0,0,.2), linewidth=7)

then I get the equivalent of

pylab.plot([1,2,3],[1,4,9], color=(1,0,0), linewidth=7)

i.e. it does not use the alpha value. However, if instead I use

pylab.plot([1,2,3],[1,4,9], color=(1,0,0), linewidth=7, alpha=.2)

then the line is faded out appropriately. The plot documentation indicates that RGBA tuples should be valid, so I’m wondering if this is a bug. Maybe alpha is defaulting to 1 or None and then not being overwritten if color is a 4-tuple?

I’m using Arch Linux with kernel 2.6.39, matplotlib 1.0.1 from the Arch repo, and the Qt4 backend. My installed Qt version is 4.7.3, and I am using KDE 4.6.5. Below is verbose-debug output. Thanks for any help!

Ben

$HOME=/home/ben
CONFIGDIR=/home/ben/.matplotlib
matplotlib data path /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data
loaded rc file /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data/matplotlibrc

matplotlib version 1.0.1
verbose.level debug
interactive is False
units is False
platform is linux2
loaded modules: [‘heapq’, ‘numpy.core.info’, ‘distutils’, ‘numpy.lib.format’, ‘functools’, ‘pylab’, ‘_bisect’, ‘subprocess’, ‘sysconfig’, ‘gc’, ‘matplotlib.tempfile’, ‘distutils.sysconfig’, ‘ctypes._endian’, ‘encodings.encodings’, ‘pyparsing’, ‘matplotlib.colors’, ‘numpy.core.numerictypes’, ‘numpy.testing.sys’, ‘numpy.lib.future’, ‘numpy.fft.types’, ‘numpy.ma.cPickle’, ‘struct’, ‘numpy.matrixlib.defmatrix’, ‘numpy.random.info’, ‘tempfile’, ‘numpy.compat.types’, ‘pprint’, ‘numpy.linalg’, ‘matplotlib.threading’, ‘numpy.core.machar’, ‘numpy.testing.types’, ‘numpy.testing’, ‘collections’, ‘numpy.polynomial.sys’, ‘unittest.sys’, ‘numpy.core.umath’, ‘unittest.main’, ‘distutils.types’, ‘numpy.testing.operator’, ‘numpy.core.scalarmath’, ‘numpy.ma.sys’, ‘zipimport’, ‘string’, ‘matplotlib.subprocess’, ‘numpy.testing.os’, ‘unittest.functools’, ‘numpy.lib.arraysetops’, ‘numpy.testing.unittest’, ‘numpy.lib.math’, ‘encodings.utf_8’, ‘matplotlib.future’, ‘unittest.types’, ‘unittest.util’, ‘numpy.testing.re’, ‘numpy.version’, ‘numpy.lib.re’, ‘distutils.re’, ‘numpy.matrixlib.sys’, ‘ctypes.os’, ‘numpy.core.os’, ‘numpy.lib.type_check’, ‘numpy.compat.sys’, ‘unittest.StringIO’, ‘bisect’, ‘numpy.core._internal’, ‘signal’, ‘numpy.lib.types’, ‘numpy.lib._datasource’, ‘random’, ‘numpy.lib.builtin’, ‘numpy.fft.fftpack_lite’, ‘matplotlib.cbook’, ‘textwrap’, ‘numpy.core.multiarray’, ‘numpy.polynomial.string’, ‘distutils.version’, ‘cStringIO’, ‘numpy.polynomial’, ‘numpy.numpy’, ‘matplotlib.StringIO’, ‘unittest.time’, ‘locale’, ‘numpy.add_newdocs’, ‘unittest.difflib’, ‘numpy.core.getlimits’, ‘base64’, ‘_ssl’, ‘numpy.lib.sys’, ‘encodings’, ‘numpy.ma.itertools’, ‘unittest.pprint’, ‘unittest.re’, ‘abc’, ‘numpy.matrixlib’, ‘numpy.ctypes’, ‘numpy.testing.decorators’, ‘matplotlib.warnings’, ‘rfc822’, ‘numpy.lib.npyio’, ‘numpy.lib.numpy’, ‘matplotlib.sys’, ‘re’, ‘numpy.lib._compiled_base’, ‘numpy.polynomial.legendre’, ‘threading’, ‘new’, ‘numpy.ma.warnings’, ‘numpy.random.mtrand’, ‘urllib2’, ‘matplotlib.cPickle’, ‘math’, ‘numpy.fft.helper’, ‘fcntl’, ‘unittest.case’, ‘matplotlib.numpy’, ‘UserDict’, ‘unittest.suite’, ‘numpy.lib.function_base’, ‘distutils.os’, ‘matplotlib’, ‘numpy.fft.numpy’, ‘exceptions’, ‘numpy.lib.info’, ‘ctypes’, ‘numpy.lib.warnings’, ‘ctypes.struct’, ‘codecs’, ‘numpy.core._sort’, ‘numpy.os’, ‘unittest.loader’, ‘_functools’, ‘_locale’, ‘numpy.builtin’, ‘matplotlib.os’, ‘thread’, ‘StringIO’, ‘numpy.core.memmap’, ‘traceback’, ‘numpy.testing.warnings’, ‘weakref’, ‘itertools’, ‘numpy.fft.fftpack’, ‘numpy.linalg.lapack_lite’, ‘numpy.ma’, ‘distutils.sys’, ‘os’, ‘marshal’, ‘numpy.lib.itertools’, ‘future’, ‘_collections’, ‘urllib’, ‘matplotlib.traceback’, ‘_sre’, ‘unittest’, ‘numpy.core.sys’, ‘numpy.random’, ‘numpy.linalg.numpy’, ‘builtin’, ‘numpy.lib.twodim_base’, ‘numpy.ma.core’, ‘matplotlib.re’, ‘numpy.core.cPickle’, ‘unittest.runner’, ‘operator’, ‘numpy.polynomial.polytemplate’, ‘numpy.core.arrayprint’, ‘distutils.string’, ‘numpy.lib.arrayterator’, ‘select’, 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‘matplotlib.fontconfig_pattern’, ‘fnmatch’, ‘sre_parse’, ‘pickle’, ‘numpy.core.ctypes’, ‘mimetools’, ‘distutils.distutils’, ‘unittest.signal’, ‘copy_reg’, ‘sre_compile’, ‘_hashlib’, ‘_random’, ‘_ctypes’, ‘site’, ‘numpy.lib.polynomial’, ‘numpy.compat’, ‘numpy._import_tools’, ‘numpy.polynomial.hermite’, ‘main’, ‘numpy.fft.info’, ‘numpy.core.records’, ‘shutil’, ‘numpy.lib.cPickle’, ‘numpy.sys’, ‘numpy.polynomial.hermite_e’, ‘urlparse’, ‘unittest.result’, ‘strop’, ‘grp’, ‘linecache’, ‘numpy.polynomial.numpy’, ‘numpy.core.numeric’, ‘numpy.linalg.info’, ‘encodings.codecs’, ‘_abcoll’, ‘numpy.core’, ‘matplotlib.locale’, ‘matplotlib.rcsetup’, ‘matplotlib.time’, ‘matplotlib.weakref’, ‘genericpath’, ‘stat’, ‘socket’, ‘numpy.lib._iotools’, ‘numpy.lib.index_tricks’, ‘numpy.testing.utils’, ‘warnings’, ‘numpy.lib.utils’, ‘numpy.core.defchararray’, ‘numpy.polynomial.polyutils’, ‘numpy.lib.shape_base’, ‘numpy.core.types’, ‘unittest.signals’, ‘sys’, ‘numpy.core.warnings’, ‘numpy.compat._inspect’, ‘numpy.core.builtin’, ‘ctypes.ctypes’, ‘numpy.testing.traceback’, ‘numpy.lib.os’, ‘numpy.testing.nosetester’, ‘types’, ‘numpy.lib.shutil’, ‘matplotlib.datetime’, ‘matplotlib.distutils’, ‘_weakref’, ‘numpy.testing.numpytest’, ‘difflib’, ‘distutils.errors’, ‘numpy.matrixlib.numpy’, ‘matplotlib.matplotlib’, ‘_weakrefset’, ‘matplotlib.shutil’, ‘numpy.lib.cStringIO’, ‘unittest.warnings’, ‘time’, ‘unittest.traceback’, ‘ssl’, ‘numpy.linalg.linalg’, ‘unittest.os’, ‘numpy.testing.numpy’]

Using fontManager instance from /home/ben/.matplotlib/fontList.cache
backend Qt4Agg version 0.9.1
findfont: Matching :family=sans-serif:style=normal:variant=normal:weight=normal:stretch=normal:size=medium to Bitstream Vera Sans (/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data/fonts/ttf/Vera.ttf) with score of 0.000000

3

Hi,

Has anyone else noticed this behavior? For the devs, do you prefer a github bug to the SF list?

Ben

···

On Mon, Jul 25, 2011 at 2:21 PM, Ben Breslauer <bbreslauer@…287…> wrote:

I think that I have found the problem here. Line2D.draw() (and I presume other Artist subclasses) calls

gc.set_foreground(self._color)

…
gc.set_alpha(self._alpha)

self._color is defined by the color kwarg, whether it be a hex value, 3-tuple, 4-tuple, or something else. self._alpha is defined by the alpha kwarg, but if the alpha kwarg is None, it is not overwritten with color[3]. Therefore, using color=(R,G,B,A) does not set alpha correctly. I’m not sure the best (i.e. most matplotlib-like) way to change this so that the A value gets used iff alpha is None, but I’ve attached a patch that does it one way (diff’ed against the github master, commit 67b1cd650f574f9c53ce). I know the patch is less than ideal, as it adds kwarg-specific handling into a place where none had previously been done, and it’s also in a for loop. Maybe it would be better to do the checking along with the scalex and scaley pops?

Separately, I noticed that backend_bases.GraphicsContextBase.set_foreground claims to only expect an RGB definition, and not an RGBA definition. As such, I think that it should call

self._rgb = colors.colorConverter.to_rgb(fg)

instead of

self._rgb = colors.colorConverter.to_rgba(fg)

since that will make self._rgb a 3-tuple instead of a 4-tuple.

Ben

On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 3:13 PM, Ben Breslauer <bbreslauer@…287…> wrote:

Hi,

I’m trying to fade some data, using alpha values, that I am plotting with Axes.plot(). I can recreate this problem with 1 line of pylab.plot. If I use

pylab.plot([1,2,3],[1,4,9], color=(1,0,0,.2), linewidth=7)

then I get the equivalent of

pylab.plot([1,2,3],[1,4,9], color=(1,0,0), linewidth=7)

i.e. it does not use the alpha value. However, if instead I use

pylab.plot([1,2,3],[1,4,9], color=(1,0,0), linewidth=7, alpha=.2)

then the line is faded out appropriately. The plot documentation indicates that RGBA tuples should be valid, so I’m wondering if this is a bug. Maybe alpha is defaulting to 1 or None and then not being overwritten if color is a 4-tuple?

I’m using Arch Linux with kernel 2.6.39, matplotlib 1.0.1 from the Arch repo, and the Qt4 backend. My installed Qt version is 4.7.3, and I am using KDE 4.6.5. Below is verbose-debug output. Thanks for any help!

Ben

$HOME=/home/ben
CONFIGDIR=/home/ben/.matplotlib
matplotlib data path /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data
loaded rc file /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data/matplotlibrc

matplotlib version 1.0.1
verbose.level debug
interactive is False
units is False
platform is linux2
loaded modules: [‘heapq’, ‘numpy.core.info’, ‘distutils’, ‘numpy.lib.format’, ‘functools’, ‘pylab’, ‘_bisect’, ‘subprocess’, ‘sysconfig’, ‘gc’, ‘matplotlib.tempfile’, ‘distutils.sysconfig’, ‘ctypes._endian’, ‘encodings.encodings’, ‘pyparsing’, ‘matplotlib.colors’, ‘numpy.core.numerictypes’, ‘numpy.testing.sys’, ‘numpy.lib.future’, ‘numpy.fft.types’, ‘numpy.ma.cPickle’, ‘struct’, ‘numpy.matrixlib.defmatrix’, ‘numpy.random.info’, ‘tempfile’, ‘numpy.compat.types’, ‘pprint’, ‘numpy.linalg’, ‘matplotlib.threading’, ‘numpy.core.machar’, ‘numpy.testing.types’, ‘numpy.testing’, ‘collections’, ‘numpy.polynomial.sys’, ‘unittest.sys’, ‘numpy.core.umath’, ‘unittest.main’, ‘distutils.types’, ‘numpy.testing.operator’, ‘numpy.core.scalarmath’, ‘numpy.ma.sys’, ‘zipimport’, ‘string’, ‘matplotlib.subprocess’, ‘numpy.testing.os’, ‘unittest.functools’, ‘numpy.lib.arraysetops’, ‘numpy.testing.unittest’, ‘numpy.lib.math’, ‘encodings.utf_8’, ‘matplotlib.future’, ‘unittest.types’, ‘unittest.util’, ‘numpy.testing.re’, ‘numpy.version’, ‘numpy.lib.re’, ‘distutils.re’, ‘numpy.matrixlib.sys’, ‘ctypes.os’, ‘numpy.core.os’, ‘numpy.lib.type_check’, ‘numpy.compat.sys’, ‘unittest.StringIO’, ‘bisect’, ‘numpy.core._internal’, ‘signal’, ‘numpy.lib.types’, ‘numpy.lib._datasource’, ‘random’, ‘numpy.lib.builtin’, ‘numpy.fft.fftpack_lite’, ‘matplotlib.cbook’, ‘textwrap’, ‘numpy.core.multiarray’, ‘numpy.polynomial.string’, ‘distutils.version’, ‘cStringIO’, ‘numpy.polynomial’, ‘numpy.numpy’, ‘matplotlib.StringIO’, ‘unittest.time’, ‘locale’, ‘numpy.add_newdocs’, ‘unittest.difflib’, ‘numpy.core.getlimits’, ‘base64’, ‘_ssl’, ‘numpy.lib.sys’, ‘encodings’, ‘numpy.ma.itertools’, ‘unittest.pprint’, ‘unittest.re’, ‘abc’, ‘numpy.matrixlib’, ‘numpy.ctypes’, ‘numpy.testing.decorators’, ‘matplotlib.warnings’, ‘rfc822’, ‘numpy.lib.npyio’, ‘numpy.lib.numpy’, ‘matplotlib.sys’, ‘re’, ‘numpy.lib._compiled_base’, ‘numpy.polynomial.legendre’, ‘threading’, ‘new’, ‘numpy.ma.warnings’, ‘numpy.random.mtrand’, ‘urllib2’, ‘matplotlib.cPickle’, ‘math’, ‘numpy.fft.helper’, ‘fcntl’, ‘unittest.case’, ‘matplotlib.numpy’, ‘UserDict’, ‘unittest.suite’, ‘numpy.lib.function_base’, ‘distutils.os’, ‘matplotlib’, ‘numpy.fft.numpy’, ‘exceptions’, ‘numpy.lib.info’, ‘ctypes’, ‘numpy.lib.warnings’, ‘ctypes.struct’, ‘codecs’, ‘numpy.core._sort’, ‘numpy.os’, ‘unittest.loader’, ‘_functools’, ‘_locale’, ‘numpy.builtin’, ‘matplotlib.os’, ‘thread’, ‘StringIO’, ‘numpy.core.memmap’, ‘traceback’, ‘numpy.testing.warnings’, ‘weakref’, ‘itertools’, ‘numpy.fft.fftpack’, ‘numpy.linalg.lapack_lite’, ‘numpy.ma’, ‘distutils.sys’, ‘os’, ‘marshal’, ‘numpy.lib.itertools’, ‘future’, ‘_collections’, ‘urllib’, ‘matplotlib.traceback’, ‘_sre’, ‘unittest’, ‘numpy.core.sys’, ‘numpy.random’, ‘numpy.linalg.numpy’, ‘builtin’, ‘numpy.lib.twodim_base’, ‘numpy.ma.core’, ‘matplotlib.re’, ‘numpy.core.cPickle’, ‘unittest.runner’, ‘operator’, ‘numpy.polynomial.polytemplate’, ‘numpy.core.arrayprint’, ‘distutils.string’, ‘numpy.lib.arrayterator’, ‘select’, ‘ctypes._ctypes’, ‘_heapq’, ‘ctypes.sys’, ‘matplotlib.errno’, ‘unittest.collections’, ‘posixpath’, ‘numpy.lib.financial’, ‘numpy.polynomial.laguerre’, ‘matplotlib.random’, ‘errno’, ‘_socket’, ‘binascii’, ‘sre_constants’, ‘datetime’, ‘numpy.core.shape_base’, ‘os.path’, ‘numpy.core.function_base’, ‘numpy.compat.py3k’, ‘numpy.lib.stride_tricks’, ‘numpy.core.numpy’, ‘numpy’, ‘_warnings’, ‘numpy.polynomial.chebyshev’, ‘matplotlib.types’, ‘cPickle’, ‘encodings.builtin’, ‘numpy.polynomial.warnings’, ‘matplotlib.new’, ‘_codecs’, ‘numpy.lib.operator’, ‘unittest.fnmatch’, ‘numpy.polynomial.polynomial’, ‘numpy.config’, ‘pwd’, ‘matplotlib.pyparsing’, ‘httplib’, ‘numpy.lib.ufunclike’, ‘copy’, ‘numpy.core.re’, ‘_struct’, ‘numpy.core.fromnumeric’, ‘hashlib’, ‘numpy.ctypeslib’, ‘keyword’, ‘array’, ‘numpy.lib.scimath’, ‘numpy.fft’, ‘numpy.lib’, ‘numpy.ma.numpy’, ‘numpy.random.numpy’, ‘matplotlib.urllib2’, ‘unittest.weakref’, ‘numpy.ma.extras’, ‘numpy.polynomial.future’, ‘posix’, ‘encodings.aliases’, ‘matplotlib.fontconfig_pattern’, ‘fnmatch’, ‘sre_parse’, ‘pickle’, ‘numpy.core.ctypes’, ‘mimetools’, ‘distutils.distutils’, ‘unittest.signal’, ‘copy_reg’, ‘sre_compile’, ‘_hashlib’, ‘_random’, ‘_ctypes’, ‘site’, ‘numpy.lib.polynomial’, ‘numpy.compat’, ‘numpy._import_tools’, ‘numpy.polynomial.hermite’, ‘main’, ‘numpy.fft.info’, ‘numpy.core.records’, ‘shutil’, ‘numpy.lib.cPickle’, ‘numpy.sys’, ‘numpy.polynomial.hermite_e’, ‘urlparse’, ‘unittest.result’, ‘strop’, ‘grp’, ‘linecache’, ‘numpy.polynomial.numpy’, ‘numpy.core.numeric’, ‘numpy.linalg.info’, ‘encodings.codecs’, ‘_abcoll’, ‘numpy.core’, ‘matplotlib.locale’, ‘matplotlib.rcsetup’, ‘matplotlib.time’, ‘matplotlib.weakref’, ‘genericpath’, ‘stat’, ‘socket’, ‘numpy.lib._iotools’, ‘numpy.lib.index_tricks’, ‘numpy.testing.utils’, ‘warnings’, ‘numpy.lib.utils’, ‘numpy.core.defchararray’, ‘numpy.polynomial.polyutils’, ‘numpy.lib.shape_base’, ‘numpy.core.types’, ‘unittest.signals’, ‘sys’, ‘numpy.core.warnings’, ‘numpy.compat._inspect’, ‘numpy.core.builtin’, ‘ctypes.ctypes’, ‘numpy.testing.traceback’, ‘numpy.lib.os’, ‘numpy.testing.nosetester’, ‘types’, ‘numpy.lib.shutil’, ‘matplotlib.datetime’, ‘matplotlib.distutils’, ‘_weakref’, ‘numpy.testing.numpytest’, ‘difflib’, ‘distutils.errors’, ‘numpy.matrixlib.numpy’, ‘matplotlib.matplotlib’, ‘_weakrefset’, ‘matplotlib.shutil’, ‘numpy.lib.cStringIO’, ‘unittest.warnings’, ‘time’, ‘unittest.traceback’, ‘ssl’, ‘numpy.linalg.linalg’, ‘unittest.os’, ‘numpy.testing.numpy’]

Using fontManager instance from /home/ben/.matplotlib/fontList.cache
backend Qt4Agg version 0.9.1
findfont: Matching :family=sans-serif:style=normal:variant=normal:weight=normal:stretch=normal:size=medium to Bitstream Vera Sans (/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data/fonts/ttf/Vera.ttf) with score of 0.000000

4

I have not personally observed this, but usually, people don’t specify rgba tuples for plot. I think the lack of response is due to our focus on larger bugs right now for the upcoming release. Therefore, it would probably be best to file a bug report with your patch so that we have a record of it.

The fuller patch might be more involved (consider scatter and other functions). Plus, we would likely need to consider what to do if both an rgba tuple and alpha were specified,

As a rule of thumb, if we don’t respond on list, file a bug report.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention!
Ben Root

···

On Monday, August 15, 2011, Ben Breslauer <bbreslauer@…287…> wrote:

Hi,

Has anyone else noticed this behavior? For the devs, do you prefer a github bug to the SF list?

Ben

5

I think that I have found the problem here. Line2D.draw() (and I
presume other Artist subclasses) calls

gc.set_foreground(self._color)
...
gc.set_alpha(self._alpha)

self._color is defined by the color kwarg, whether it be a hex value,
3-tuple, 4-tuple, or something else. self._alpha is defined by the
alpha kwarg, but if the alpha kwarg is None, it is not overwritten with
color[3]. Therefore, using color=(R,G,B,A) does not set alpha
correctly. I'm not sure the best (i.e. most matplotlib-like) way to
change this so that the A value gets used iff alpha is None, but I've
attached a patch that does it one way (diff'ed against the github
master, commit 67b1cd650f574f9c53ce). I know the patch is less than
ideal, as it adds kwarg-specific handling into a place where none had
previously been done, and it's also in a for loop. Maybe it would be
better to do the checking along with the scalex and scaley pops?

Alpha handling is a real can of worms; it has gotten better, but as you note, there are still problems. Unfortunately, I don't think your proposed solution will work in general, because self._color could be a 4-letter string, like "gray", in which case alpha would be set to "y", and that would not be good at all. I suspect the right place to solve the problem is down in the GraphicsContext--although I thought I had already straightened that out some time ago.

As Ben notes, you should file a bug report.
Given that the handling of colors and alpha is inherently tricky (and backend-dependent--ps doesn't support alpha at all), solving the problem well is going to take a bit of time and care, most likely--and testing to make sure that a fix in one place doesn't cause a bug in another. I think we should leave it alone until after the next release.

Eric

···

On 07/25/2011 08:21 AM, Ben Breslauer wrote:

Separately, I noticed that
backend_bases.GraphicsContextBase.set_foreground claims to only expect
an RGB definition, and not an RGBA definition. As such, I think that it
should call

self._rgb = colors.colorConverter.to_rgb(fg)

instead of

self._rgb = colors.colorConverter.to_rgba(fg)

since that will make self._rgb a 3-tuple instead of a 4-tuple.

Ben

On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 3:13 PM, Ben Breslauer <bbreslauer@...287... > <mailto:bbreslauer@…287…>> wrote:

    Hi,

    I'm trying to fade some data, using alpha values, that I am plotting
    with Axes.plot(). I can recreate this problem with 1 line of
    pylab.plot. If I use

    pylab.plot([1,2,3],[1,4,9], color=(1,0,0,.2), linewidth=7)

    then I get the equivalent of

    pylab.plot([1,2,3],[1,4,9], color=(1,0,0), linewidth=7)

    i.e. it does not use the alpha value. However, if instead I use

    pylab.plot([1,2,3],[1,4,9], color=(1,0,0), linewidth=7, alpha=.2)

    then the line is faded out appropriately. The plot documentation
    indicates that RGBA tuples should be valid, so I'm wondering if this
    is a bug. Maybe alpha is defaulting to 1 or None and then not being
    overwritten if color is a 4-tuple?

    I'm using Arch Linux with kernel 2.6.39, matplotlib 1.0.1 from the
    Arch repo, and the Qt4 backend. My installed Qt version is 4.7.3,
    and I am using KDE 4.6.5. Below is verbose-debug output. Thanks
    for any help!

    Ben

    $HOME=/home/ben
    CONFIGDIR=/home/ben/.matplotlib
    matplotlib data path
    /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data
    loaded rc file
    /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data/matplotlibrc
    matplotlib version 1.0.1
    verbose.level debug
    interactive is False
    units is False
    platform is linux2
    loaded modules: ['heapq', 'numpy.core.info
    <http://numpy.core.info>', 'distutils', 'numpy.lib.format',
    'functools', 'pylab', '_bisect', 'subprocess', 'sysconfig', 'gc',
    'matplotlib.tempfile', 'distutils.sysconfig', 'ctypes._endian',
    'encodings.encodings', 'pyparsing', 'matplotlib.colors',
    'numpy.core.numerictypes', 'numpy.testing.sys',
    'numpy.lib.__future__', 'numpy.fft.types', 'numpy.ma.cPickle',
    'struct', 'numpy.matrixlib.defmatrix', 'numpy.random.info
    <http://numpy.random.info>', 'tempfile', 'numpy.compat.types',
    'pprint', 'numpy.linalg', 'matplotlib.threading',
    'numpy.core.machar', 'numpy.testing.types', 'numpy.testing',
    'collections', 'numpy.polynomial.sys', 'unittest.sys',
    'numpy.core.umath', 'unittest.main', 'distutils.types',
    'numpy.testing.operator', 'numpy.core.scalarmath', 'numpy.ma.sys',
    'zipimport', 'string', 'matplotlib.subprocess', 'numpy.testing.os',
    'unittest.functools', 'numpy.lib.arraysetops',
    'numpy.testing.unittest', 'numpy.lib.math', 'encodings.utf_8',
    'matplotlib.__future__', 'unittest.types', 'unittest.util',
    'numpy.testing.re <http://numpy.testing.re>', 'numpy.version',
    'numpy.lib.re <http://numpy.lib.re>', 'distutils.re
    <http://distutils.re>', 'numpy.matrixlib.sys', 'ctypes.os',
    'numpy.core.os', 'numpy.lib.type_check', 'numpy.compat.sys',
    'unittest.StringIO', 'bisect', 'numpy.core._internal', 'signal',
    'numpy.lib.types', 'numpy.lib._datasource', 'random',
    'numpy.lib.__builtin__', 'numpy.fft.fftpack_lite',
    'matplotlib.cbook', 'textwrap', 'numpy.core.multiarray',
    'numpy.polynomial.string', 'distutils.version', 'cStringIO',
    'numpy.polynomial', 'numpy.numpy', 'matplotlib.StringIO',
    'unittest.time', 'locale', 'numpy.add_newdocs', 'unittest.difflib',
    'numpy.core.getlimits', 'base64', '_ssl', 'numpy.lib.sys',
    'encodings', 'numpy.ma.itertools', 'unittest.pprint', 'unittest.re
    <http://unittest.re>', 'abc', 'numpy.matrixlib', 'numpy.ctypes',
    'numpy.testing.decorators', 'matplotlib.warnings', 'rfc822',
    'numpy.lib.npyio', 'numpy.lib.numpy', 'matplotlib.sys', 're',
    'numpy.lib._compiled_base', 'numpy.polynomial.legendre',
    'threading', 'new', 'numpy.ma.warnings', 'numpy.random.mtrand',
    'urllib2', 'matplotlib.cPickle', 'math', 'numpy.fft.helper',
    'fcntl', 'unittest.case', 'matplotlib.numpy', 'UserDict',
    'unittest.suite', 'numpy.lib.function_base', 'distutils.os',
    'matplotlib', 'numpy.fft.numpy', 'exceptions', 'numpy.lib.info
    <http://numpy.lib.info>', 'ctypes', 'numpy.lib.warnings',
    'ctypes.struct', 'codecs', 'numpy.core._sort', 'numpy.os',
    'unittest.loader', '_functools', '_locale', 'numpy.__builtin__',
    'matplotlib.os', 'thread', 'StringIO', 'numpy.core.memmap',
    'traceback', 'numpy.testing.warnings', 'weakref', 'itertools',
    'numpy.fft.fftpack', 'numpy.linalg.lapack_lite', 'numpy.ma
    <http://numpy.ma>', 'distutils.sys', 'os', 'marshal',
    'numpy.lib.itertools', '__future__', '_collections', 'urllib',
    'matplotlib.traceback', '_sre', 'unittest', 'numpy.core.sys',
    'numpy.random', 'numpy.linalg.numpy', '__builtin__',
    'numpy.lib.twodim_base', 'numpy.ma.core', 'matplotlib.re
    <http://matplotlib.re>', 'numpy.core.cPickle', 'unittest.runner',
    'operator', 'numpy.polynomial.polytemplate',
    'numpy.core.arrayprint', 'distutils.string',
    'numpy.lib.arrayterator', 'select', 'ctypes._ctypes', '_heapq',
    'ctypes.sys', 'matplotlib.errno', 'unittest.collections',
    'posixpath', 'numpy.lib.financial', 'numpy.polynomial.laguerre',
    'matplotlib.random', 'errno', '_socket', 'binascii',
    'sre_constants', 'datetime', 'numpy.core.shape_base', 'os.path',
    'numpy.core.function_base', 'numpy.compat.py3k',
    'numpy.lib.stride_tricks', 'numpy.core.numpy', 'numpy', '_warnings',
    'numpy.polynomial.chebyshev', 'matplotlib.types', 'cPickle',
    'encodings.__builtin__', 'numpy.polynomial.warnings',
    'matplotlib.new', '_codecs', 'numpy.lib.operator',
    'unittest.fnmatch', 'numpy.polynomial.polynomial',
    'numpy.__config__', 'pwd', 'matplotlib.pyparsing', 'httplib',
    'numpy.lib.ufunclike', 'copy', 'numpy.core.re
    <http://numpy.core.re>', '_struct', 'numpy.core.fromnumeric',
    'hashlib', 'numpy.ctypeslib', 'keyword', 'array',
    'numpy.lib.scimath', 'numpy.fft', 'numpy.lib', 'numpy.ma.numpy',
    'numpy.random.numpy', 'matplotlib.urllib2', 'unittest.weakref',
    'numpy.ma.extras', 'numpy.polynomial.__future__', 'posix',
    'encodings.aliases', 'matplotlib.fontconfig_pattern', 'fnmatch',
    'sre_parse', 'pickle', 'numpy.core.ctypes', 'mimetools',
    'distutils.distutils', 'unittest.signal', 'copy_reg', 'sre_compile',
    '_hashlib', '_random', '_ctypes', 'site', 'numpy.lib.polynomial',
    'numpy.compat', 'numpy._import_tools', 'numpy.polynomial.hermite',
    '__main__', 'numpy.fft.info <http://numpy.fft.info>',
    'numpy.core.records', 'shutil', 'numpy.lib.cPickle', 'numpy.sys',
    'numpy.polynomial.hermite_e', 'urlparse', 'unittest.result',
    'strop', 'grp', 'linecache', 'numpy.polynomial.numpy',
    'numpy.core.numeric', 'numpy.linalg.info
    <http://numpy.linalg.info>', 'encodings.codecs', '_abcoll',
    'numpy.core', 'matplotlib.locale', 'matplotlib.rcsetup',
    'matplotlib.time', 'matplotlib.weakref', 'genericpath', 'stat',
    'socket', 'numpy.lib._iotools', 'numpy.lib.index_tricks',
    'numpy.testing.utils', 'warnings', 'numpy.lib.utils',
    'numpy.core.defchararray', 'numpy.polynomial.polyutils',
    'numpy.lib.shape_base', 'numpy.core.types', 'unittest.signals',
    'sys', 'numpy.core.warnings', 'numpy.compat._inspect',
    'numpy.core.__builtin__', 'ctypes.ctypes',
    'numpy.testing.traceback', 'numpy.lib.os',
    'numpy.testing.nosetester', 'types', 'numpy.lib.shutil',
    'matplotlib.datetime', 'matplotlib.distutils', '_weakref',
    'numpy.testing.numpytest', 'difflib', 'distutils.errors',
    'numpy.matrixlib.numpy', 'matplotlib.matplotlib', '_weakrefset',
    'matplotlib.shutil', 'numpy.lib.cStringIO', 'unittest.warnings',
    'time', 'unittest.traceback', 'ssl', 'numpy.linalg.linalg',
    'unittest.os', 'numpy.testing.numpy']
    Using fontManager instance from /home/ben/.matplotlib/fontList.cache
    backend Qt4Agg version 0.9.1
    findfont: Matching
    :family=sans-serif:style=normal:variant=normal:weight=normal:stretch=normal:size=medium
    to Bitstream Vera Sans
    (/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data/fonts/ttf/Vera.ttf)
    with score of 0.000000

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6

2011/8/16 Eric Firing <efiring@...202...>:

I think that I have found the problem here. Line2D.draw() (and I
presume other Artist subclasses) calls

gc.set_foreground(self._color)
...
gc.set_alpha(self._alpha)

self._color is defined by the color kwarg, whether it be a hex value,
3-tuple, 4-tuple, or something else. self._alpha is defined by the
alpha kwarg, but if the alpha kwarg is None, it is not overwritten with
color[3]. Therefore, using color=(R,G,B,A) does not set alpha
correctly. I'm not sure the best (i.e. most matplotlib-like) way to
change this so that the A value gets used iff alpha is None, but I've
attached a patch that does it one way (diff'ed against the github
master, commit 67b1cd650f574f9c53ce). I know the patch is less than
ideal, as it adds kwarg-specific handling into a place where none had
previously been done, and it's also in a for loop. Maybe it would be
better to do the checking along with the scalex and scaley pops?

Alpha handling is a real can of worms; it has gotten better, but as you
note, there are still problems. Unfortunately, I don't think your
proposed solution will work in general, because self._color could be a
4-letter string, like "gray", in which case alpha would be set to "y",
and that would not be good at all. I suspect the right place to solve
the problem is down in the GraphicsContext--although I thought I had
already straightened that out some time ago.
...

Eric

Separately, I noticed that
backend_bases.GraphicsContextBase.set_foreground claims to only expect
an RGB definition, and not an RGBA definition. As such, I think that it
should call

self._rgb = colors.colorConverter.to_rgb(fg)

instead of

self._rgb = colors.colorConverter.to_rgba(fg)

since that will make self._rgb a 3-tuple instead of a 4-tuple.

Ben
...

Just a remark for this recent proposed patch, as I unfortunately don't
know the implications for the whole codebase.
I believe, that the condition added in the patch
if len(line._color) == 4 and line._alpha == None:
could be adjusted to e.g.:
if isinstance(line._color, tuple) and len(line._color) == 4 and
line._alpha == None

If the alpha value can be set in the color-tuple (for "#RRGGBBAA" some
parsing would be needed, if it is accepted).
Possibly the _alpha should be replace with tha alpha value of the
colour passed this way like
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/api/colors_api.html#matplotlib.colors.ColorConverter.to_rgba
"If arg is an RGBA sequence and alpha is not None, alpha will replace
the original A."

But as has been suggested already, it might be better adressed in some
more general way, than in this single function.

regards,
  vbr

···

On 07/25/2011 08:21 AM, Ben Breslauer wrote:

7

Ben, Eric, and Vlastimil,

Thanks for the responses. I will try and submit a bug report soon, and perhaps a patch if I can come up with something more complete, though obviously I don’t know the matplotlib code base all that well. And I’ll keep that rule of thumb in mind in the future.

Ben

···

On Tue, Aug 16, 2011 at 12:22 AM, Benjamin Root <ben.root@…3203…04…> wrote:

On Monday, August 15, 2011, Ben Breslauer <bbreslauer@…287…> wrote:

Hi,

Has anyone else noticed this behavior? For the devs, do you prefer a github bug to the SF list?

Ben

I have not personally observed this, but usually, people don’t specify rgba tuples for plot. I think the lack of response is due to our focus on larger bugs right now for the upcoming release. Therefore, it would probably be best to file a bug report with your patch so that we have a record of it.

The fuller patch might be more involved (consider scatter and other functions). Plus, we would likely need to consider what to do if both an rgba tuple and alpha were specified,

As a rule of thumb, if we don’t respond on list, file a bug report.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention!
Ben Root

8

2011/8/16 Eric Firing<efiring@...202...>:

I think that I have found the problem here. Line2D.draw() (and I
presume other Artist subclasses) calls

gc.set_foreground(self._color)
...
gc.set_alpha(self._alpha)

self._color is defined by the color kwarg, whether it be a hex value,
3-tuple, 4-tuple, or something else. self._alpha is defined by the
alpha kwarg, but if the alpha kwarg is None, it is not overwritten with
color[3]. Therefore, using color=(R,G,B,A) does not set alpha
correctly. I'm not sure the best (i.e. most matplotlib-like) way to
change this so that the A value gets used iff alpha is None, but I've
attached a patch that does it one way (diff'ed against the github
master, commit 67b1cd650f574f9c53ce). I know the patch is less than
ideal, as it adds kwarg-specific handling into a place where none had
previously been done, and it's also in a for loop. Maybe it would be
better to do the checking along with the scalex and scaley pops?

Alpha handling is a real can of worms; it has gotten better, but as you
note, there are still problems. Unfortunately, I don't think your
proposed solution will work in general, because self._color could be a
4-letter string, like "gray", in which case alpha would be set to "y",
and that would not be good at all. I suspect the right place to solve
the problem is down in the GraphicsContext--although I thought I had
already straightened that out some time ago.
...

Eric

Separately, I noticed that
backend_bases.GraphicsContextBase.set_foreground claims to only expect
an RGB definition, and not an RGBA definition. As such, I think that it
should call

self._rgb = colors.colorConverter.to_rgb(fg)

instead of

self._rgb = colors.colorConverter.to_rgba(fg)

since that will make self._rgb a 3-tuple instead of a 4-tuple.

Ben
...

Just a remark for this recent proposed patch, as I unfortunately don't
know the implications for the whole codebase.
I believe, that the condition added in the patch
if len(line._color) == 4 and line._alpha == None:
could be adjusted to e.g.:
if isinstance(line._color, tuple) and len(line._color) == 4 and
line._alpha == None

If the alpha value can be set in the color-tuple (for "#RRGGBBAA" some
parsing would be needed, if it is accepted).
Possibly the _alpha should be replace with tha alpha value of the
colour passed this way like
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/api/colors_api.html#matplotlib.colors.ColorConverter.to_rgba
"If arg is an RGBA sequence and alpha is not None, alpha will replace
the original A."

But as has been suggested already, it might be better adressed in some
more general way, than in this single function.

See graphics context: use alpha value from foreground color if present by efiring · Pull Request #423 · matplotlib/matplotlib · GitHub

Eric

···

On 08/16/2011 12:42 AM, Vlastimil Brom wrote:

On 07/25/2011 08:21 AM, Ben Breslauer wrote:

  regards,
   vbr

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