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Are there any mature Python packages that can plot functions, and possibly use adaptive sampling?
I am looking to pass only a function (can be a numerical black box) and a range, and expect a plot as the output.
What I am not looking for: manually generating the sampling points, manually computing the function values, and finally plotting these pre-computed values. I know matplotlib can do this.
It sounds like you want the multi-precision plot function from SymPy, which is capable of plotting arbitrary black-box functions over a given range.
import math
from sympy.mpmath import plot
plot(lambda x: math.exp(x), [1, 4])
Yes.
Sage can plot functions adaptively; the link is to a 3d implementation, but presumably, there is an analogous 2d implementation.
You could use this function that samples adaptively 1-d functions. (see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14084634/adaptive-plotting-of-a-function-in-python for discussion) Judging from your comments, this may not be a solution you want, but presumably, if you can do all of the steps individually, cobbling together a convenience wrapper with the interface you want would not take too long.
SymPy has an adaptive plotting interface included; it appears to only plot SymPy expressions, though, which may not suit your needs. (Ondrej can correct me on this point.)
These implementations probably span the extremes of heavyweight (Sage is a big library) and lightweight (a single sampling function is not intrusive, and presumably, you could use it with any graphics backend you like).
from ... import ... syntax (e.g., from sage.plot import plot3d), but you'd still have to install the whole library. If GPL'd code isn't an issue, you could also look at the source and pull out ready-made parts you need. I figured you know how to do it based on answers to other questions, and I'm a little surprised this feature isn't already part of matplotlib.
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Jul 1, 2014 at 0:21
ezplot, MathematicaPlot, etc. I'm new to using Python like this. I'm interested in ready made libraries, not writing an adaptive sampler myself. $\endgroup$