I have large time-traces that must be inspected visually, so I need a fast scrolling tool.
How can I achieve the fastest Maplotlib/Pyside scrolling?
Right know, I added a PySide scroll-bar to a MPL figure and update the x-range of the plot with set_xlim() method. This is not fast enough especially because in the final application I have at least 8 time-traces in different subplots that must all scroll together. A figure of the plot is attached.
Is there room for improvement?
Here I attach the demo code that demonstrate the relatively low scrolling. It's long but it's almost all boiler-plate code. The interesting bit (that needs improvement) is in xpos_changed() method where the plot xlimits are changed.
EDIT: Below I incorporated some micro-optimizations suggested by tcaswell, but the update speed is not improved.
from PySide import QtGui, QtCore
import pylab as plt
import numpy as np
N_SAMPLES = 1e6
def test_plot():
time = np.arange(N_SAMPLES)*1e-3
sample = np.random.randn(N_SAMPLES)
plt.plot(time, sample, label="Gaussian noise")
plt.title("1000s Timetrace \n (use the slider to scroll and the spin-box to set the width)")
plt.xlabel('Time (s)')
plt.legend(fancybox=True)
q = ScrollingToolQT(plt.gcf(), scroll_step=10)
return q # WARNING: it's important to return this object otherwise
# python will delete the reference and the GUI will not respond!
class ScrollingToolQT(object):
def __init__(self, fig, scroll_step=10):
# Setup data range variables for scrolling
self.fig = fig
self.scroll_step = scroll_step
self.xmin, self.xmax = fig.axes[0].get_xlim()
self.width = 1 # axis units
self.pos = 0 # axis units
self.scale = 1e3 # conversion betweeen scrolling units and axis units
# Save some MPL shortcuts
self.ax = self.fig.axes[0]
self.draw = self.fig.canvas.draw
#self.draw_idle = self.fig.canvas.draw_idle
# Retrive the QMainWindow used by current figure and add a toolbar
# to host the new widgets
QMainWin = fig.canvas.parent()
toolbar = QtGui.QToolBar(QMainWin)
QMainWin.addToolBar(QtCore.Qt.BottomToolBarArea, toolbar)
# Create the slider and spinbox for x-axis scrolling in toolbar
self.set_slider(toolbar)
self.set_spinbox(toolbar)
# Set the initial xlimits coherently with values in slider and spinbox
self.ax.set_xlim(self.pos,self.pos+self.width)
self.draw()
def set_slider(self, parent):
self.slider = QtGui.QSlider(QtCore.Qt.Horizontal, parent=parent)
self.slider.setTickPosition(QtGui.QSlider.TicksAbove)
self.slider.setTickInterval((self.xmax-self.xmin)/10.*self.scale)
self.slider.setMinimum(self.xmin*self.scale)
self.slider.setMaximum((self.xmax-self.width)*self.scale)
self.slider.setSingleStep(self.width*self.scale/4.)
self.slider.setPageStep(self.scroll_step*self.width*self.scale)
self.slider.setValue(self.pos*self.scale) # set the initial position
self.slider.valueChanged.connect(self.xpos_changed)
parent.addWidget(self.slider)
def set_spinbox(self, parent):
self.spinb = QtGui.QDoubleSpinBox(parent=parent)
self.spinb.setDecimals(3)
self.spinb.setRange(0.001,3600.)
self.spinb.setSuffix(" s")
self.spinb.setValue(self.width) # set the initial width
self.spinb.valueChanged.connect(self.xwidth_changed)
parent.addWidget(self.spinb)
def xpos_changed(self, pos):
#pprint("Position (in scroll units) %f\n" %pos)
pos /= self.scale
self.ax.set_xlim(pos, pos+self.width)
self.draw()
def xwidth_changed(self, width):
#pprint("Width (axis units) %f\n" % step)
if width <= 0: return
self.width = width
self.slider.setSingleStep(self.width*self.scale/5.)
self.slider.setPageStep(self.scroll_step*self.width*self.scale)
old_xlim = self.ax.get_xlim()
self.xpos_changed(old_xlim[0]*self.scale)
if __name__ == "__main__":
q = test_plot()
plt.show()
