E. Tufte Slope Graphs contest

So here is my entry for the slope Graph contest. (You can find the initial bounty description here )

Installation

Dependancies

This script is written in Python and relies on Numpy, Pandas and Matplotlib.
The easiest way to have a clean and robust install is to download one the great Scientific Python distribution, nameley :

Everything you'll need is included. I personally use Anaconda from the guys at Continuum Analytics. All of them should work on Linux, Windows and Mac.

Download the sources

Go grab the sources at https://github.com/pascal-schetelat/Slope

If you want slope to be available anywhere on your system :

python setup.py install

Else, just set the working directory where plotSlope.py is.

Then you are good to go. Import it in a Python interpreter (for instance Spyder, the Scientific python IDE bundled with Anaconda, or a jupyter notebook):

from plotSlope import slope

Usage

Import :



In [4]:

    
from plotSlope import slope

Load data from file into a data frame :



In [7]:

    
data = pd.read_csv(os.path.join('data','EU_GDP_2007_2013.csv'),index_col=0,na_values='-')
(data/1000).head()

Plot it :



In [6]:

    
f = slope(data/1000,kind='interval',height= 12,width=20,font_size=12,dpi=150,savename='EU_interval.png',title = u'title')



In [9]:

    
color  = {"France":'b','Germany':'r','Ireland':'chocolate','United Kingdom': 'purple'}
f = slope(data/1000, title = u'European GPD until 2010 and forecasts at market prices (billions of Euro) source : EUROSTAT',
          kind='interval',height= 12,width=22,font_size=15,
          savename='test.png',color=color,dpi=200)



In [10]:

    
f = slope(data/1000, title = u'European GPD until 2010 and forecasts at market prices (billions of Euro) source : EUROSTAT',
          kind='interval',height= 12,width=30,font_size=20,
          savename=None,color=color)

Other example : Random data



In [11]:

    
df = pd.DataFrame( np.random.normal(loc=np.ones(shape=[20,30])*np.arange(30)))
df.rename(columns = lambda el : str(el),index =lambda el : str(el),inplace=True)



In [12]:

    
f = slope(df.T,width =10,height= 8,kind='ordinal',savename=None,dpi=200,color={'10':'red','27':'blue'},marker=None)

	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011	2012	2013
Austria	274.0198	282.7460	274.8182	286.1973	300.8913	310.1333	322.1904
Belgium	335.6100	346.1300	340.3980	354.3780	370.4364	381.7799	396.2738
Bulgaria	30.7724	35.4305	34.9328	36.0335	38.9899	NaN	NaN
Croatia	43.3804	47.7602	45.6661	45.8992	46.0216	46.7810	48.1752
Cyprus	15.9015	17.1571	16.8535	17.3336	17.9286	18.4096	19.1675