matplotlib

Matplotlib is the "grandfather" library of data visualization with Python. It was created by John Hunter. He created it to try to replicate MatLab's (another programming language) plotting capabilities in Python. So if you happen to be familiar with matlab, matplotlib will feel natural to you.

It is an excellent 2D and 3D graphics library for generating scientific figures.

Some of the major pros of Matplotlib are:

• Generally easy to get started for simple plots.
• Support for custom labels and texts.
• Great control of every element in a figure.
• High-quality output in many formats.
• Very customizable in general.

Matplotlib allows you to create reproducible figures programmatically.

References

• http://www.matplotlib.org - The project web page for matplotlib.
• https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib - The source code for matplotlib.
• http://matplotlib.org/gallery.html - A large gallery showcaseing various types of plots matplotlib can create. Highly recommended!
• http://www.loria.fr/~rougier/teaching/matplotlib - A good matplotlib tutorial.
• http://scipy-lectures.github.io/matplotlib/matplotlib.html - Another good matplotlib reference.

Back to py4math