When used as backend for matplotlib, GR can't export to svg

[JackLilhammers]

I am developing a desktop application that utilizes Matplotlib for plotting purposes. To improve performance, I have chosen the GR framework as the backend for Matplotlib, since it's 100 times faster. (nice!)

However, I am currently facing an issue where exporting plots to SVG:

• GR, when used directly, supports exporting plots to SVG
• When used as backend for mpl, I get the infamous: The GR backend does not support svg output error

While researching a solution, I found this old closed issue: gr as backend for matplotlib: Can I save images as png? Interestingly enough, a response suggested that exporting to SVG format would be an easier alternative, indicating the potential existence of SVG export capability with GR as a backend. Did I misunderstand something?

OTOH, if this feature is missing, would it be hard to add it? What would it take to implement it? I'm willing to help, but I know nothing about matplotlib's backends...

Thank you for your attention to this matter

Update: I patched the backend to save SVGs, but it does it as slow as mpl, so I'm clearly doing something wrong...

[jheinen]

As mentioned in this issue, the only way to redirect the GR output is to use the GKSwstype environment variable, e.g.

GKSwstype=svg python ...

Could you provide an example how you use GR as a backend for MPL? How did you patch the backend?

[JackLilhammers]

I'm sorry, here some code :)

I made a test script using this example as base: https://gr-framework.org/examples/figanim.html It's quite long, so I attached it last.

You can try GR as a backend for matplotlib and/or as backend for savefig() If you run the script with -s gr or with -b gr -o it'll crash. It'll crash with the Agg backend too, because it doesn't support SVGs.

You'll notice that if you select GR as backend it's not actually used, because FigureCanvasGR doesn't have a print_svg() method, and matplotlib falls back to its SVG backend. Here's my dumb print_svg() for FigureCanvasGR

    def print_svg(self, filename, *args, **kwargs):
        gr.beginprint(filename)
        self.draw()
        gr.endprint()

This however is as slow as the default one, and I don't know why. Maybe because the slow part runs in matplotlib

To see what's the actual backend used, I added a couple of debug prints at the beginning of _switch_canvas_and_return_print_method() in backend_bases.py inside matplotlib

    def _switch_canvas_and_return_print_method(self, fmt, backend=None):
        """..."""
        canvas = None
        if backend is not None:
            print(f'using the selected backend: {backend}')
            # Return a specific canvas class, if requested.
            canvas_class = (
                importlib.import_module(cbook._backend_module_name(backend))
                .FigureCanvas)
            if not hasattr(canvas_class, f"print_{fmt}"):
                raise ValueError(
                    f"The {backend!r} backend does not support {fmt} output")
        elif hasattr(self, f"print_{fmt}"):
            print(f'using current backend: {self.__class__}')
            # Return the current canvas if it supports the requested format.
            canvas = self
            canvas_class = None  # Skip call to switch_backends.
        else:
            # Return a default canvas for the requested format, if it exists.
            canvas_class = get_registered_canvas_class(fmt)
            print(f'selected the default backend: {canvas_class}')

Here's your modified example

import sys
import os
from timeit import default_timer as timer
import numpy as np

import os
import shutil
import argparse

# env
os.environ["GKS_WSTYPE"] = 'svg'

# utility function because gr is easier to write
def backend_name(name: str|None) -> str|None:
    if name is not None:
        return name.lower() if name.lower() != 'gr' else 'module://gr.matplotlib.backend_gr'

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# args
parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()

parser.add_argument(
    "-b", "--backend",
    help="Selects a backend for matplotlib",
)
parser.add_argument(
    "-s", "--savefig",
    help="Selects a backend for savefig(), can be overridden by `--override`",
)
parser.add_argument(
    "-o", "--override",
    help="The backend selected with `--backend`, if any, will be used for savefig(), "
        "otherwise it'll use the default one. "
        "If `--savefig` is passed it'll be ignored",
    action="store_true",
)

args = parser.parse_args()

backend = backend_name(args.backend)
if backend is not None:
    os.environ["MPLBACKEND"] = backend

savefig = backend_name(args.savefig)

override = bool(args.override)

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

# output folder
PLOTS_PATH = 'plots'
shutil.rmtree(PLOTS_PATH, ignore_errors=True)
os.mkdir(PLOTS_PATH)
os.chdir(PLOTS_PATH)

#-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

x = np.arange(0, 2 * np.pi, 0.01)

# create an animation using GR

from gr.pygr import plot

tstart = timer()
for i in range(1, 100):
    plot(x, np.sin(x + i / 10.0))
    if i % 2 == 0:
        print('.', end="")
        sys.stdout.flush()

fps_gr = int(100 / (timer() - tstart))
print('fps  (GR): %4d' % fps_gr)

# create the same animation using matplotlib

import matplotlib
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# the current backend, just to be sure
print(f'matplotlib is using: {matplotlib.get_backend()}')

# choose a backend for savefig
# if is overridden uses backend
if not override:
    if savefig is not None:
        # user selected
        backend = savefig
    else:
        # default
        backend = None

tstart = timer()
for i in range(1, 100):
    plt.clf()
    plt.plot(np.sin(x + i / 10.0))
    plt.savefig(f'mpl{i:04d}.svg', backend=backend)
    if i % 2 == 0:
        print('.', end="")
        sys.stdout.flush()

fps_mpl = int(100 / (timer() - tstart))
print('fps (mpl): %4d' % fps_mpl)

print('  speedup: %6.1f' % (float(fps_gr) / fps_mpl))

[jheinen]

The plain GR example works fine:

from timeit import default_timer as timer
import numpy as np
from gr.pygr.mlab import plot, savefig

x = np.arange(0, 2 * np.pi, 0.01)

tstart = timer()
for i in range(100):
    plot(x, np.sin(x + i / 10.0))
    savefig(f'gr{i:04d}.svg')

fps_gr = int(100 / (timer() - tstart))
print('fps (gr): %4d' % fps_gr)

Therefore I have to assume that something is suboptimally implemented in Matplotlib. I'll try to find out tomorrow what the problem is.

[JackLilhammers]

Did you find anything? Can I help you in some way? I profiled the execution and indeed it's matplotlib's drawing functions that are slow, but I don't know enough to understand what happens

This is the full log of cProfile gr_backend.log

[jheinen]

After tests with cProfile I can unfortunately only confirm that most of the time is spent in the Python savefig part. Optimizing the GR wrapper would not help until the root cause is found.

[JackLilhammers]

We'll try something else. Anyway, thank you for your time!