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Bokeh

Bokeh (pronounced bo-Kay or bo-Kuh) is a Python interactive visualization library for large datasets that natively uses the latest web technologies. Its goal is to provide elegant, concise construction of novel graphics in the style of Protovis/D3, while delivering high-performance interactivity over large data to thin clients.

Design & Motivation

Bokeh's architecture includes a high-level plotting DSL based on the Stencil visualization system that is able to express a superset of the statistical binding concepts of the Grammar of Graphics and the glyph-based visualization constructions of Protovis and D3. (This DSL is currently an S-Expr based syntax, but will evolve into a Python embedded DSL.)

There are many excellent plotting packages for Python, but they generally do not optimize for the particular needs of statistical plotting (easy faceting, bulk application of aesthetic and visual parameters across categorical variables, pleasing default color palettes for categorical data, etc.). One of the side goals of Bokeh is to provide a compelling Python equivalent of ggplot in R.

Bokeh has several high-level Python interfaces, including a ggplot-like set of plotting functions, as well as MATLAB-style plotting commands such as scatter(), line(), and the like. These are called "schema-oriented" renderers, and they are wrappers around a low-level set of Python objects, which drive the Javascript objects in BokehJS.

The Python interface can either generate static Javascript for embedding in an HTML file, or output JSON state to be stored in a Redis-backed Plot Server. (Both forms can be embedded in IPython Notebook.) The latter "server-based" mode is very powerful because view state is stored on the server, and provides a much richer level of collaboration in exploratory web-based graphics than is anything else we are aware of.

Status

Bokeh was conceived in March 2012, and still remains in the experimental/prototype stage. It is under active development by contributors at Continuum Analytics, and with the recent award of a grant from DARPA, we are able to devote more resources into it, along with collaborators from Indiana University.

Please see docs/release_notes.md for the most up-to-date information on the current release.

Dependencies

At a minimum, Bokeh requires the following:

  • Numpy
  • Flask
  • Redis
  • Requests
  • gevent
  • gevent-websocket
  • Pandas
  • continuumweb

For an older rich-client prototype of some interactive GGplot functionality, the Chaco plotting library is also required.

Although Bokeh only uses Numpy natively, it can also take advantage of DataFrames from Pandas, in order to display tables that support aggregation and group-by operation.

Installation

After installing the dependencies, run the following:

git clone git://github.com/ContinuumIO/Bokeh.git
cd Bokeh
python setup.py install

The setup.py will automatically grab the latest compiled javascript from github, so you don't need coffeescript in order to use Bokeh.

Web based plotting

Bokeh can currently do rich-client output via Chaco, and publish to the web via a few mechanisms.

  • Bokeh can output static html, with data and Javascript embedded
  • Bokeh can output static html to the ipython notebook
  • Bokeh can output static html to the ipython notebook, AND connect the notebook to the bokeh web server
  • by navigating to http://localhost:5006/bokeh, you can view Bokeh plots as they are pushed out via websockets by the webserver

Static html dump based web plotting examples

  • $ python glyph1.py in examples/.
  • open up the generated glyph1.html in a web browser.

Server Based Web Plotting Examples

  • start a redis-server anywhere, using $ redis-server &
  • execute $ python runserver.py in a terminal, this will start a webserver which will block the terminal
  • execute $ python glyph2.py or $ python prim.py in examples/ This will make a few plots.
  • navigate to http://localhost:5006/bokeh. The bokeh client plots to named plot namespaces, called 'documents'. You should see a list of documents on this page in an accordion view, clicking on one should load the plots for that document
  • To do the same plots in an ipython notebook, open up an ipython notebook. open up cars.ipynb. Execute that notebook.

Developing Bokeh

Bokeh development is complicated by the fact that there is Python code and Coffeescript in Bokeh itself, and there is Coffeescript in BokehJS.

It is possible to set up just for development on Bokeh, without having a development install of BokehJS. To do this, just run $ python setup.py. This will copy the pre-built application.js and bokehnotebook.js files from the jsbuild/ directory into the correct place in the source tree.

If you want to do development on BokehJS as well, then modify the subtree source in the subtree/bokehjs/ directory, and run $ hem build -d or $ hem server -d in the bokeh/server/ directory. ONLY DO THIS IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING!

Coffeescript

To develop Bokeh you will need to install coffeescript, which depends on node.js.

Hem

We're using our own fork of hem to manage the build process.
Please clone this repo: https://github.com/ContinuumIO/hem. hem will compile coffeescript, combine js files, and support node.js require syntax on the client side.

Install it by executing

$ sudo npm link inside the hem repo.

This will link hem to your working copy so you get hem changes as we push it out. Inside bokeh/server/ of the Bokeh repo, execute $ hem server &. The hem server will serve up coffeescript, compiling them on the fly.

Developing

To run the debug webserver, execute $ python runserver.py -d -j. The debug webserver is configured to ask the hem server for compiled javascript, rather than read the pre-compiled application.js off of disk.

For the embedded plotting examples, or the production server, you will need to compile the js yourself.

  • Go to the bokeh/server/ directory.
  • $ hem build -d will build the Bokeh application.js file
  • $ hem build -d -s slug.notebook.json will build bokehnotebook.js, which is used for all the notebook examples
  • the -d option will prevent hem from uglifying the js, which breaks the notebook export at the moment.

What Does the Name "Bokeh" Mean?

"Bokeh" is a photography term that refers to the aesthetic quality of the blur of a photograph's background.