On Sunday, March 13, 2011, onet <o...@dds.nl> wrote: > On Fri, 2011-03-11 at 17:08 -1000, Eric Firing wrote: >> On 03/11/2011 02:54 PM, onet wrote: >> > Using matplotlib I try to plot satellite observations, which consists of >> > roughly one million patches that are not gridded regularly. >> > I first collect the vertices (corner points of the observations) and >> > colors and then use PolyCollection and ax.add_collection to add these >> > patches to the figure. >> > >> > On my 64bit Linux machine: >> > # 1M patches will use> 4Gb of memory >> > >> > My question: how can I plot more efficiently and use less memory? >> >> If your data are on a quadrilateral mesh, as in your example, (or can be >> approximately mapped onto such a mesh) then pcolormesh should be very >> much more efficient both in time and in memory than making a PolyCollection. > > The data I want to plot is not as regular as in the example (this was > just to generate lots of non-overlaping patches) but it has different > shapes along the orbit of the satellite when projected on the map. > Almost square at the equator and rotated near the poles. See example > link below from a plot in IDL. > > http://temis.nl/o3msaf/vaac/gome2/vaac/daily/images/2011/S-O3M_GOME_NAR_02_M02_20110312000254Z_20110313000254Z_N_O_20110313024518Z.AAI_Global.Unfiltered.png > > But I think my satellite data along an orbit is probably piecewise > regular enough try the pcolormesh approach. > > So thanks for the suggestion! > > Best regards, > > Olaf. >
It might be regular with respect to a particular projection. Have you considered checking out Basemap? Ben Root ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Colocation vs. Managed Hosting A question and answer guide to determining the best fit for your organization - today and in the future. http://p.sf.net/sfu/internap-sfd2d _______________________________________________ Matplotlib-users mailing list Matplotlib-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users