Script for plotting time interval based data.

It uses matplotlib and is thus written in Python.

The input file format is a simple comma separated one and matplotlib supports a bunch of output file formats (SVG, PNG, PDF, ...) - just specify a well known file extension. If no output file is specified the default matplotlib viewer is displayed, where the plot can be zoomed, rotated etc. The viewer also provides a save feature.

2013-08-23, Georg Sauthoff mail@georg.so

Some data visualization where the input is inherently tied to time intervals. Examples:

• Rows from a database table containing pairwise contracting information, and each pair may have multiple subcontracts. All contracts have an effective date and an enddate. The visualization may make certain patterns obvious, e.g. clusters, incomplete overlaps, gaps, illegal overlaps ...

• Visualization of process runtimes in a batch environment.

• Visualization of support intervals

Create 2D plot, where the x-axis is the time and the y-axis lists categories:

$ ./plotintv.py some.inp -s sub_cat_name_a -c color_a \
                         -s sub_cat_name_b -c color_b \
     --legend-pos='upper left' --ylabel main_cat_name

This launches the interactive matplotlib viewer.

For pairs of main categories there is a 3D mode:

$ ./plotintv.py some.inp -s sub_cat_name_a -c color_a \
                         -s sub_cat_name_b -c color_b \
     --ylabel main_cat_left_name --zlabel main_cat_right_name \
     --3d

See also --help for a complete list of options. Graphic files can be directly created, some default parameters are customizable.

Sub-categories are grouped together when displaying the main categories.

See the output of --help.

GPLv3+