qviz

README

QViz

QViz is a utility to quickly and interactively visualize data with by evaluating Go source code at runtime. It works by exposing the gonum/plot library to a yaegi interpreter.

Usage

Usage: qviz [OPTIONS] SCRIPT_PATH

Generate plots by writing Go scripts

Arguments:
  SCRIPT_PATH     path to a qviz script file

Options:
  -m, --monitor   monitor the script for changes running on each modification
      --width     image width (inches) (default 9)
      --height    image height (inches) (default 9)
  -o, --out       write the plot to this path (default "/dev/stdout")
  -t, --type      type of file to output [eps,jpg,pdf,png,svg,tiff]

Interactive Usage

There are several approaches that can be used to display a plot interactively while editing script files. On Linux the feh X11 image viewer works nicely monitoring the output image for changes.

# Monitor the simple.go script file for changes in real time
qviz --monitor -out /tmp/simple.png examples/simple/simple.go
# Next in a separate pane you can use an image viewer like feh
feh /tmp/simple.png
# Now finally open up the script file in your favorite editor
vim examples/simple/simple.go

Writing Scripts

Valid QViz scripts are normal Go files that import the pkg/stdlib overlay package. Example scripts can be found here.

package main

import qviz "github.com/kevinschoon/qviz/pkg/stdlib"

func main() {
    // qviz.New is a convenience function that returns a
    // new *plot.Plot 
    plt := qviz.New()
    plt.Title.Text = "My New Chart"
    // qviz.Render must be called at the end of your script file and only once,
    // calling it before hand will halt the execution of the program.
    qviz.Render(plt)
}

Roadmap

• CLI based plotter
• allow external user defined packages
• first class integration with qframe
• finish importing the remaining Gonum packages
• native UI / code editor...?