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rephrase what is psyplot section
first tell what it is, then what it is not. Explain the downside by the advantages of the software
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‎docs/about.rst‎

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@@ -56,34 +56,6 @@ What it is, and what it is not
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There are tons of software tools around for visualization, so what is special
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about psyplot? The following list should hopefully provide you some guidance.
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What it is not
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**************
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- it is not the fastest. If matplotlib or the standard visualization utilities
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from R, NCL, etc. are sufficient for you, you can go with psyplot. If you
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want to create a global map with tens of millions of grid cells, you are
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better of using a more powerful (but more complex and in many respects less
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flexible) GPU-based software, such as Paraview_.
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- it is not the best for interactive web-applications. Although it would be
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pretty simple to set up a backend server with psyplot and tornado_ or Flask_,
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for instance, it's limited to sending rastered image data around, due to the
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`options provided by matplotlib`_. This might change in the future, when we
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are using `other visualization backends`_.
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- it is not as fast as ncview_. psyplot (and psy-view_ in particular) are
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written in python and therefore, we are very flexible (much more than ncview),
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but we will never beat the speed of the (compiled) ncview software.
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- our GUI is not the most interactive one. psyplot is a `command-line-first`
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software, i.e. we put the most effort in making the usage from command-line
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and scripts as easy as possible. The GUI is something on top and is limited by
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the speed and functionalities of matplotlib (which is, nevertheless, pretty
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rich)
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- it is not made for statistical visualizations. Although there are some
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functionalities implemented by psy-reg_, it will never beat the possibilities
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by packages like seaborn_ or R_. The only advantage of psy-reg over these
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other software tools, is the possibility to adapt everything using the full
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power of matplotlib artists within and outside of the psyplot framework
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- it is not the best software for manipulating shapefiles, although some support
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of this might come in the future.
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What it is
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**********
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- It is fast. Not necessarily when it comes down to being the fastest
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visualization. No GUI, independent of it's intuitiveness, can ever beat the
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speed of a scientist that knows a bit of coding and how to use the different
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formatoptions in psyplot.
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- it is very flexible (I think we made this point already).
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- it visualizes :ref:`unstructured grids <psy_maps:gallery_examples_example_ugrid.ipynb>`,
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such as ICON or UGRID model data
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- it automatically decodes CF-conventions
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- it intuitively integrates the structure of netCDF files. So if you often
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work with netCDF files, psyplot might be a good option
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- it is pythonic. If you are using python anyway, psyplot is worth a try and we
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are always keen to help new users getting started.
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- it is very flexible (I think we made this point already), from command-line
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and GUI.
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* We can implement tons of new visualization and data analysis techniques and
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:ref:`you can implement your own <plugins_guide>`.
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* it's modular framework allows to tackle new scientific questions and handle
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handled them in separate psyplot plugins with it's own formatoptions and
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plotting methods
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- it intuitively integrates the structure of netCDF files. So if you often
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work with netCDF files, psyplot might be a good option
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- it is pythonic. If you are using python anyway, psyplot is worth a try and we
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are always keen to help new users getting started.
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- it will always be free and open-source under the GPL License.
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What it is not
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**************
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No software can do everything, neither can psyplot. Our main focus on
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flexibility, easy command-line usage and the GUI integration inevitably comes
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with a few downsides.
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- it is not the fastest, because we use matplotlib to be flexible in our
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visualization, and this runs on the CPU, rather than the GPU. But if
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matplotlib or the standard visualization utilities from R, NCL, etc. are
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sufficient for you, you can go with psyplot.
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- it is not the best for interactive web-applications. Although it would be
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pretty simple to set up a backend server with psyplot and tornado_ or Flask_,
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for instance, it's limited to sending rastered image data around, due to the
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`options provided by matplotlib`_.
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- it is not as fast as ncview_. psyplot (and psy-view_ in particular) are
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written in the dynamically interpreted python language (which allows the
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combination of GUI and command-line, and the high flexibility). But we will
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never beat the speed of the (compiled but less flexible) ncview software.
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- our GUI is not the most interactive one. psyplot is a `command-line-first`
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software, i.e. we put the most effort in making the usage from command-line
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and scripts as easy as possible. The GUI is something on top and is limited by
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the speed and functionalities of matplotlib (which is, nevertheless, pretty
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rich). But we are constantly improving the GUI, see psy-view_ for instance.
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- it is not made for statistical visualizations. We will never beat the
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possibilities by packages like seaborn_ or R_. The only advantage of psy-reg_
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over these other software tools, is the possibility to adapt everything using
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the full power of matplotlib artists within and outside of the psyplot
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framework
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- it is not the best software for manipulating shapefiles, although some support
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of this might come in the future.
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.. _Paraview: https://www.paraview.org
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.. _tornado: https://www.tornadoweb.org
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.. _flask: https://flask.palletsprojects.com
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.. _options provided by matplotlib: https://matplotlib.org/3.1.1/faq/howto_faq.html#how-to-use-matplotlib-in-a-web-application-server
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.. _other visualization backends: https://github.com/psyplot/psy-view
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.. _other visualization backends: https://github.com/psyplot/psy-vtk
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.. _psy-view: https://github.com/psyplot/psy-view
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.. _ncview: http://meteora.ucsd.edu/~pierce/ncview_home_page.html
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.. _psy-reg: https://psyplot.readthedocs.io/projects/psy-reg
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.. _seaborn: https://seaborn.pydata.org

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