Python bindings for the amazing ImPlot, GPU accelerated plotting library for Dear ImGui.
Warning: This is alpha quality code.
Documentation: TODO
NOTES from the time when this was introduced into the pyimgui codebase!
It is not clear to me if this is the best place for ImPlot python binding. The question remains if it would be better to place this code into a separate project, or provide it as part of pyimgui. As of now the latter has been chosen due to my laziness, poor undestanding of cython and also due to some obstacles encountered during the process of creating this binding.
Read on if you are interested in couple of details.
As per ImGui and ImPlot documentation using them both as shared library is not recomended. In case of python binding this is exactly what is being done. The ImGui part ends up being a shared library and plot becomes a separate shared library. Creating a single shared library (with ImGui and ImPlot) does not sound like a good idea at all so lets not go there. Not going with shared library is also something that we can not do; AFAICT due to the way cypthon does its business (I might be wrong).
At the level of C++ that cython wraps into python module and functions, ImPlot want access
to imgui.h and imgui_internal.h. For example ImPlot uses ImTextureID, ImGuiCond,
ImGuiMouseButton, ImGuiKeyModFlags, ImGuiDragDropFlags, ImU32, ImDrawList, ImGuiContext,
ImVec2, ImVec4 and alike. These need to be exposed a cython level, too. Currently,
these come from cimgui and internal modules provided by pyimgui binding. Using them is
as simple as adding a cimport line to a cimplot.pxd. pyimgui (c)imports were requiered for
plot.pyx as well:
cimport cimplot
cimport cimgui
cimport core
cimport enums
If the ImPlot is placed in a separate project/repo these would need to be redefined.
When I tried to compile the ImPlot C++ code for cython binding (without adding ImGui sources)
for that shared library, doing import imgui in a user script fails with GImGui being undefined.
Have I missed something there during the library build?! I don't know.
If the ImPlot binding is separate from ImGui binding (cleanest approach), I'm not sure how the user script would behave if pyimgui and pyimplot would be based of different ImGui C++ code. Might be a non-issue, but I just do not know.
Have any ideas or suggestions on the above topics? Bring them up, please!
In order to build and install project locally ,ake sure you have created and
activated virtual environment using virtualenv or python -m venv (for newer
Python releases). Then you can just run:
make build
This command will bootstrap whole environment (pull git submodules, install
dev requirements etc.) and build the project. make will automatically install
implot in the development/editable mode.