Show HN: Ultraplot – A succint wrapper for matplotlib | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Ultraplot – A succint wrapper for matplotlib

github.com

34 pointscvanelteren13 comments

That comparison between the matplotlib and ultraplot APIs doesn't seem fair. Most of the difference in length is that the separate methods for formatting in matplotlib are bundled into a single format() function in ultraplot. But, in matplotlib, you can pass those as kwargs to add_subplot() [1] which would work out at a similar length (or even shorter).

[1] https://matplotlib.org/stable/api/_as_gen/matplotlib.figure....

Maybe there are much more important API differences (I hope so, as that's a pretty trivial difference to start with.) I just mention it because that's what the screenshot seems to focus on as a justification: "Why UltraPlot? | Write Less, Create More".

Fair points. Behind the scenes there are changes from matplotlib. For example our `GridSpec` assumes a flat layout and does not allow for nesting. This simplifies the alignment when using (nested) panels, colorbars (which are aligned by default) and legends. Additionally it dispatches the plotting over multiple plots by default. We also attempt to make the plotting process a bit more pydanctic by moving `colorbars` to the axis or figure objects and allowing direct plotting for geo plots.

You can consider as a bunch of tools that ease the publication making process but is by no means a panacea, but offers a different flavor to the scientific plotting stack.

Check out our docs or more visual examples.

For those unfamiliar, ProPlot was widely loved for enabling publication-quality graphics with minimal effort. UltraPlot continues that mission with active development, updated compatibility, and a focus on simplicity.

Why UltraPlot?

Key improvements over vanilla matplotlib:

  - Effortless subplot management: build complex multi-panel layouts in one line

  - GeoAxes support included out of the box

  - Smarter aesthetics: beautiful colormaps, fonts, and styles without extra code

  - Intuitive syntax: less boilerplate, more plotting

  - Seamless compatibility: everything you know from matplotlib still applies

Instead of wrestling with subplot positioning and styling, you can write:

``` import ultraplot as uplt

layout = [[0, 1, 2], [3, 3, 4]]

fig, axs = uplt.subplots(layout)

axs[0].plot(x, y1, label="Data 1")

axs[1].plot(x, y2, label="Data 2")

axs.format(xlabel="Hello", ylabel="Hacker news", abc="[A]") # format applies to all axes fig.legend()

```

...and get a clean, professional-looking plot in seconds.

Get Started:

- GitHub: https://github.com/Ultraplot/ultraplot

- Docs: https://ultraplot.readthedocs.io/en/latest/

Try it out and let us know what you think — contributions and feedback are very welcome!

> Instead of wrestling with subplot positioning and styling, you can write:

This would be more convincing if you showed the equivalent Matplotlib code and demonstrated that any improvements are not just a result of default settings being a closer match for what the example tries to do. The code shown here looks more or less like what I'd expect a Matplotlib hello-world to look like.

You are right. I was doubting whether to make a more complicated example -- but formatting is poor in text boxes. Let me give you a more complex one.

Let's say we want a 3-column plot: colormesh, polar, and geo plot.

UltraPlot:

  import ultraplot as uplt, numpy as np
  fig, ax = uplt.subplots(
      ncols=3, share=0, proj="cart polar merc".split(), journal="nat2"
  )
  ax[0].pcolormesh(
      np.random.rand(10, 10), cmap="viko", colorbar="r",
      colorbar_kw=dict(title="some interesting colors")
  )
  angles, radii = np.random.rand(100) * 360, np.random.rand(100)
  ax[1].scatter(angles, radii, c=radii, cmap="spectral_r")
  x, y = np.meshgrid(np.linspace(-30, 30, 100), np.linspace(-60, 60, 100))
  z = np.exp(-(x*2 + y*2) / 100)
  ax[2].pcolormesh(x, y, z, cmap="Fire")
  ax[2].format(landcolor="green", land=True, grid=True, lonlabels=True, latlabels=True)
  ax.format(abc="[A]")
  fig.show()

Matplotlib equivalent:

  import matplotlib.pyplot as plt, numpy as np, cartopy.crs as ccrs
  fig = plt.figure(figsize=(15, 5))
  ax0 = fig.add_subplot(1, 3, 1)
  pcm = ax0.pcolormesh(np.random.rand(10, 10), cmap="viridis")
  cbar = plt.colorbar(pcm, ax=ax0)
  cbar.set_label("some interesting colors")
  cbar.ax.yaxis.label.set_color("r")
  
  ax1 = fig.add_subplot(1, 3, 2, projection="polar")
  angles = np.random.rand(100) * 2 * np.pi
  radii = np.random.rand(100)
  sc = ax1.scatter(angles, radii, c=radii, cmap="Spectral_r")
  
  ax2 = fig.add_subplot(1, 3, 3, projection=ccrs.Mercator())
  x, y = np.meshgrid(np.linspace(-30, 30, 100), np.linspace(-60, 60, 100))
  z = np.exp(-(x*2 + y*2) / 100)
  pcm2 = ax2.pcolormesh(x, y, z, cmap="magma", transform=ccrs.PlateCarree())
  ax2.coastlines()
  ax2.gridlines(draw_labels=True)
  ax2.set_extent([-30, 30, -60, 60], crs=ccrs.PlateCarree())
  import cartopy.feature as cfeature
  ax2.add_feature(cfeature.LAND, facecolor="green")
  for i, ax in enumerate([ax0, ax1, ax2]):
      ax.set_title(f"[{chr(65+i)}]")
  plt.tight_layout()
  plt.show()

The aim isn't to replace matplotlib but make publication-ready plots with fewer keystrokes and better defaults. We also bundle plot types not available in matplotlib like graph plotting, lollipop charts, heatmaps etc.

> You are right. I was doubting to make a more complicated example -- but formatting is poor on txt boxes.

I see now that you have an example in the README. I think it would be better still in the README, but as plain text rather than rendered into an SVG.

Interesting, thanks. A few questions from a newbie:

* I hadn't heard of ProPlot before. I take it that it's no longer maintained? Is there an announcement, or is it just obvious from commits drying up (like with PIL which was forked into Pillow)?

* Is this a (friendly) fork (again, as with PIL/Pillow), or a reimplementation (in which case are there big differences or does it aim to match)?

* I hadn't of GeoAxes either and that looks pretty useful. The top web search results for that term are ProPlot and Cartopy. Is the Cartopy implementation related at all? Is this a bundling of that, or a similar reimplementation, or something fairly different?

Thanks for your questions.

  - ProPlot appears to be unmaintained - I initially tried to push changes to make it compatible with matplotlib 3.9+ around mid-2024, but after repeatedly trying to contact the original owner through official and unofficial channels with no response, we decided to fork by the end of 2024. I had grown really fond of ProPlot and wanted to keep it alive.

  - This is currently a friendly fork, not a reimplementation. We're carrying on the torch that ProPlot set out with, adding features along the way and refactoring when necessary.

  - We implement a custom GeoAxes that allows for basemap and/or Cartopy as a backend. The GeoAxes object behaves similar to a normal axis, allowing direct plotting and manipulation without the user having to worry about projections.

To answer my own questions:

* Yes it seems ProPlot stagnated and no longer works with latest matplotlib versions. UltraPlot is a fork that fixes that:

https://github.com/proplot-dev/proplot/pull/459

* Yes, the documentation says that GeoAxes is from Cartopy.

(Also, typo: the project description says "succint" rather than "succinct".)

I was hoping to see more support towards Python typings, which is my biggest annoyance with Matplotlib.

Could you explain more concretely what kind of "support" you have in mind? A graphing library isn't like Pydantic, you aren't supplying typing information from your own code to it as part of the API. Do you just mean that it should provide type annotations in its own interface? Because I do see .pyi typing stubs in the distribution.

We do provide some type hinting but it is more a recent development as we are building on the legacy code from proplot which did not provide any. I am in favor of using typing more.

Now also available from AUR: https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/python-ultraplot-git

Reply on news.ycombinator.com