Repository files navigation

Plotters is a drawing library designed for rendering figures, plots, and charts, in pure Rust. Plotters supports various types of back-ends,including bitmap, vector graph, piston window, GTK/Cairo and WebAssembly.

• A new Plotters Developer's Guide is a work in progress. The preview version is availablehere.
• Try Plotters with an interactive Jupyter notebook, or viewhere for the static HTML version.
• To view the WASM example, go to thislink
• Currently we have all the internal code ready for console plotting, but a console based backend is still not ready. Seethis example for how to plot on console with a customized backend.
• Plotters has moved some backend code to separate repositories, checkFAQ list for details
• Some interestingdemo projects are available, feel free to try them out.

To view the source code for each example, please click on the example image.

• Gallery
• Dependencies
  • Ubuntu Linux
• Quick Start
• Demo Projects
• Trying with Jupyter evcxr Kernel Interactively
• Interactive Tutorial with Jupyter Notebook
• Plotting in Rust
• Plotting on HTML5 canvas with WASM Backend
• What types of figure are supported?
• Concepts by example
  • Drawing Backends
  • Drawing Area
  • Elements
  • Composable Elements
  • Chart Context
• Misc
  • Development Version
  • Reducing Depending Libraries && Turning Off Backends
  • List of Features
• FAQ List

sudo apt install pkg-config libfreetype6-dev libfontconfig1-dev

sudo dnf install pkgconf freetype-devel fontconfig-devel

To use Plotters, you can simply add Plotters into yourCargo.toml

[dependencies]plotters ="0.3.3"

Create the subdirectory<Cargo project dir>/plotters-doc-data

And the following code draws a quadratic function.src/main.rs writes the chart toplotters-doc-data/0.png

use plotters::prelude::*;fnmain() ->Result<(),Box<dyn std::error::Error>>{let root =BitMapBackend::new("plotters-doc-data/0.png",(640,480)).into_drawing_area();    root.fill(&WHITE)?;letmut chart =ChartBuilder::on(&root).caption("y=x^2",("sans-serif",50).into_font()).margin(5).x_label_area_size(30).y_label_area_size(30).build_cartesian_2d(-1f32..1f32, -0.1f32..1f32)?;    chart.configure_mesh().draw()?;    chart.draw_series(LineSeries::new((-50..=50).map(|x| xasf32 /50.0).map(|x|(x, x* x)),&RED,))?.label("y = x^2").legend(|(x, y)|PathElement::new(vec![(x, y),(x +20, y)],&RED));    chart.configure_series_labels().background_style(&WHITE.mix(0.8)).border_style(&BLACK).draw()?;    root.present()?;Ok(())}

To learn how to use Plotters in different scenarios, check out the following demo projects:

• WebAssembly + Plotters:plotters-wasm-demo
• minifb + Plotters:plotters-minifb-demo
• GTK + Plotters:plotters-gtk-demo

Plotters now supports integration withevcxr and is able to interactively draw plots in Jupyter Notebook.The featureevcxr should be enabled when including Plotters to Jupyter Notebook.

The following code shows a minimal example of this.

:dep plotters = { version = "^0.3.6", default-features = false, features = ["evcxr", "all_series", "all_elements"] }extern crate plotters;use plotters::prelude::*;let figure = evcxr_figure((640, 480), |root| {    root.fill(&WHITE)?;    let mut chart = ChartBuilder::on(&root)        .caption("y=x^2", ("Arial", 50).into_font())        .margin(5)        .x_label_area_size(30)        .y_label_area_size(30)        .build_cartesian_2d(-1f32..1f32, -0.1f32..1f32)?;    chart.configure_mesh().draw()?;    chart.draw_series(LineSeries::new(        (-50..=50).map(|x| x as f32 / 50.0).map(|x| (x, x * x)),        &RED,    )).unwrap()        .label("y = x^2")        .legend(|(x,y)| PathElement::new(vec![(x,y), (x + 20,y)], &RED));    chart.configure_series_labels()        .background_style(&WHITE.mix(0.8))        .border_style(&BLACK)        .draw()?;    Ok(())});figure

This tutorial is a work in progress and isn't complete

Thanks to the evcxr, now we have an interactive tutorial for Plotters!To use the interactive notebook, you must have Jupyter and evcxr installed on your computer.Follow the instruction onthis page below to install it.

After that, you should be able to start your Jupyter server locally and load the tutorial!

git clone https://github.com/38/plotters-doc-datacd plotters-doc-datajupyter notebook

And select the notebook calledevcxr-jupyter-integration.ipynb.

Also, there's a static HTML version of this notebook available atthis location

Rust is a perfect language for data visualization. Although there are many mature visualization libraries in many different languages, Rust is one of the best languages that fits the need.

• Easy to use Rust has a very good iterator system built into the standard library. With the help of iterators,plotting in Rust can be as easy as most of the high-level programming languages. The Rust based plotting librarycan be very easy to use.

• Fast If you need to render a figure with trillions of data points,Rust is a good choice. Rust's performance allows you to combine the data processing stepand rendering step into a single application. When plotting in high-level programming languages,e.g. Javascript or Python, data points must be down-sampled before feeding into the plottingprogram because of the performance considerations. Rust is fast enough to do the data processing and visualizationwithin a single program. You can also integrate thefigure rendering code into your application to handle a huge amount of data and visualize it in real-time.

• WebAssembly Support Rust is one of the languages with the best WASM support. Plotting in Rust could bevery useful for visualization on a web page and would have a huge performance improvement comparing to Javascript.

Plotters currently supports a backend that uses the HTML5 canvas. To use WASM, you can simply useCanvasBackend instead of other backend and all other API remains the same!

There's a small demo for Plotters + WASM available athere.To play with the deployed version, follow thislink.

Plotters is not limited to any specific type of figure.You can create your own types of figures easily with the Plotters API.

Plotters does provide some built-in figure types for convenience.Currently, we support line series, point series, candlestick series, and histogram.And the library is designed to be able to render multiple figure into a single image.But Plotter is aimed to be a platform that is fully extendable to support any other types of figure.

Plotters can use different drawing backends, including SVG, BitMap, and even real-time rendering. For example, a bitmap drawing backend.

use plotters::prelude::*;fnmain() ->Result<(),Box<dyn std::error::Error>>{// Create a 800*600 bitmap and start drawingletmut backend =BitMapBackend::new("plotters-doc-data/1.png",(300,200));// And if we want SVG backend// let mut backend = SVGBackend::new("output.svg", (800, 600));    backend.draw_rect((50,50),(200,150),&RED,true)?;    backend.present()?;Ok(())}

Plotters uses a concept called drawing area for layout purpose.Plotters supports integrating multiple figures into a single image.This is done by creating sub-drawing-areas.

Besides that, the drawing area also allows for a customized coordinate system, by doing so, the coordinate mapping is done by the drawing area automatically.

use plotters::prelude::*;fnmain() ->Result<(),Box<dyn std::error::Error>>{let root_drawing_area =BitMapBackend::new("plotters-doc-data/2.png",(300,200)).into_drawing_area();// And we can split the drawing area into 3x3 gridlet child_drawing_areas = root_drawing_area.split_evenly((3,3));// Then we fill the drawing area with different colorfor(area, color)in child_drawing_areas.into_iter().zip(0..){        area.fill(&Palette99::pick(color))?;}    root_drawing_area.present()?;Ok(())}

In Plotters, elements are the building blocks of figures. All elements are able to be drawn on a drawing area.There are different types of built-in elements, like lines, texts, circles, etc.You can also define your own element in the application code.

You may also combine existing elements to build a complex element.

To learn more about the element system, please read theelement module documentation.

use plotters::prelude::*;fnmain() ->Result<(),Box<dyn std::error::Error>>{let root =BitMapBackend::new("plotters-doc-data/3.png",(300,200)).into_drawing_area();    root.fill(&WHITE)?;// Draw an circle on the drawing area    root.draw(&Circle::new((100,100),50,Into::<ShapeStyle>::into(&GREEN).filled(),))?;    root.present()?;Ok(())}

Besides the built-in elements, elements can be composed into a logical group we called composed elements.When composing new elements, the upper-left corner is given in the target coordinate, and a new pixel-basedcoordinate which has the upper-left corner defined as(0,0) is used for further element composition.

For example, we can have an element which includes a dot and its coordinate.

use plotters::prelude::*;use plotters::coord::types::RangedCoordf32;fnmain() ->Result<(),Box<dyn std::error::Error>>{let root =BitMapBackend::new("plotters-doc-data/4.png",(640,480)).into_drawing_area();    root.fill(&RGBColor(240,200,200))?;let root = root.apply_coord_spec(Cartesian2d::<RangedCoordf32,RangedCoordf32>::new(0f32..1f32,0f32..1f32,(0..640,0..480),));let dot_and_label = |x:f32,y:f32|{returnEmptyElement::at((x, y))            +Circle::new((0,0),3,ShapeStyle::from(&BLACK).filled())            +Text::new(format!("({:.2},{:.2})", x, y),(10,0),("sans-serif",15.0).into_font(),);};    root.draw(&dot_and_label(0.5,0.6))?;    root.draw(&dot_and_label(0.25,0.33))?;    root.draw(&dot_and_label(0.8,0.8))?;    root.present()?;Ok(())}

In order to draw a chart, Plotters needs a data object built on top of the drawing area calledChartContext.The chart context defines even higher level constructs compare to the drawing area.For example, you can define the label areas, meshes, and put a data series onto the drawing area with the helpof the chart context object.

use plotters::prelude::*;fnmain() ->Result<(),Box<dyn std::error::Error>>{let root =BitMapBackend::new("plotters-doc-data/5.png",(640,480)).into_drawing_area();    root.fill(&WHITE);let root = root.margin(10,10,10,10);// After this point, we should be able to construct a chart contextletmut chart =ChartBuilder::on(&root)// Set the caption of the chart.caption("This is our first plot",("sans-serif",40).into_font())// Set the size of the label region.x_label_area_size(20).y_label_area_size(40)// Finally attach a coordinate on the drawing area and make a chart context.build_cartesian_2d(0f32..10f32,0f32..10f32)?;// Then we can draw a mesh    chart.configure_mesh()// We can customize the maximum number of labels allowed for each axis.x_labels(5).y_labels(5)// We can also change the format of the label text.y_label_formatter(&|x|format!("{:.3}", x)).draw()?;// And we can draw something in the drawing area    chart.draw_series(LineSeries::new(vec![(0.0,0.0),(5.0,5.0),(8.0,7.0)],&RED,))?;// Similarly, we can draw point series    chart.draw_series(PointSeries::of_element(vec![(0.0,0.0),(5.0,5.0),(8.0,7.0)],5,&RED,&|c, s, st|{returnEmptyElement::at(c)// We want to construct a composed element on-the-fly            +Circle::new((0,0),s,st.filled())// At this point, the new pixel coordinate is established            +Text::new(format!("{:?}", c),(10,0),("sans-serif",10).into_font());},))?;    root.present()?;Ok(())}

Find the latest development version of Plotters onGitHub.Clone the repository and learn more about the Plotters API and ways to contribute. Your help is needed!

If you want to add the development version of Plotters to your project, add the following to yourCargo.toml:

[dependencies]plotters = {git ="https://github.com/plotters-rs/plotters.git" }

Plotters now supports use features to control the backend dependencies. By default,BitMapBackend andSVGBackend are supported,usedefault-features = false in the dependency description inCargo.toml and you can cherry-pick the backend implementations.

• svg Enable theSVGBackend
• bitmap Enable theBitMapBackend

For example, the following dependency description would avoid compiling with bitmap support:

[dependencies]plotters = {git ="https://github.com/plotters-rs/plotters.git",default-features =false,features = ["svg"] }

The library also allows consumers to make use of thePalette crate's color types by default.This behavior can also be turned off by settingdefault-features = false.

This is the full list of features that is defined byPlotters crate.Usedefault-features = false to disable those default enabled features,and then you should be able to cherry-pick what features you want to include intoPlotters crate.By doing so, you can minimize the number of dependencies down to onlyitertools and compile time is less than 6s.

The following list is a complete list of features that can be opted in or out.

• Tier 1 drawing backends

• Font manipulation features

ab_glyph supports TrueType and OpenType fonts, but does not attempt toload fonts provided by the system on which it is running.It is pure Rust, and easier to cross compile.To use this, youmust callplotters::style::register_font beforeusing anyplotters functions which require the ability to render text.This function only exists when theab_glyph feature is enabled.

/// Register a font in the fonts table.////// The `name` parameter gives the name this font shall be referred to/// in the other APIs, like `"sans-serif"`.////// Unprovided font styles for a given name will fallback to `FontStyle::Normal`/// if that is available for that name, when other functions lookup fonts which/// are registered with this function.////// The `bytes` parameter should be the complete contents/// of an OpenType font file, like:/// ```ignore/// include_bytes!("FiraGO-Regular.otf")/// ```pubfnregister_font(name:&str,style:FontStyle,bytes:&'static[u8],) ->Result<(),InvalidFont>

• (De)serialization features

serialization enables support for serializing and deserializing using the serde crate.Enable the feature via Cargo.toml then use it like the following:

#[cfg(feature ="serialization")]use serde::{Deserialize,Serialize};#[cfg_attr(feature ="serialization", derive(Serialize,Deserialize))]pubstructRGBAColor(pubu8,pubu8,pubu8,pubf64);

• Coordinate features

• Element, series and util functions

• Misc

• Why does the WASM example break on my machine ?

  The WASM example requires usingwasm32 target to build. Usingcargo build is likely to use the default targetwhich in most of the case is any of the x86 target. Thus you need add--target=wasm32-unknown-unknown in the cargoparameter list to build it.

• How to draw text/circle/point/rectangle/... on the top of chart ?

  As you may have realized, Plotters is a drawing library rather than a traditional data plotting library,you have the freedom to draw anything you want on the drawing area.UseDrawingArea::draw to draw any element on the drawing area.

• Where can I find the backend code ?

  Since Plotters 0.3, all drawing backends are independent crate from the main Plotters crate.Use the following link to find the backend code:

  • Bitmap Backend (current repository)
  • SVG Backend (current repository)
  • HTML5 Canvas Backend
  • GTK/Cairo Backend

• How to check if a backend writes to a file successfully ?

  The behavior of Plotters backend is consistent with the standard library.When the backend instance is dropped, [crate::drawing::DrawingArea::present()] orBackend::present() is called automaticallywhenever is needed. When thepresent() method is called fromdrop, any error will be silently ignored.

  In the case that error handling is important, you need manually call thepresent() method before the backend gets dropped.For more information, please see the examples.