.. _pcl_plotter:

PCLPlotter
==========

PCLPlotter provides a very straightforward and easy interface for plotting graphs. One can visualize all sort of important plots - 
from polynomial functions to histograms - inside the library without going to any other softwares (like MATLAB). 
Please go through the `documentation <http://docs.pointclouds.org/trunk/classpcl_1_1visualization_1_1_p_c_l_plotter.html>`_ when some specific concepts are introduced in this tutorial to know the exact method signatures.

The code for the visualization of a plot are usually as simple as the following snippet.


.. code-block:: cpp

    #include<vector>
    #include<iostream>
    #include<utility>
    
    #include<pcl/visualization/pcl_plotter.h> 
    //...
    
    using namespace std;
    
    int 
    main ()
    {
      //defining a plotter
      pcl::visualization::PCLPlotter * plotter = new PCLPlotter ();      
      
      //defining the polynomial function, y = x^2. Index of x^2 is 1, rest is 0
      vector<double> func1 (3,0);
      func1[2] = 1; 
  
      //adding the polynomial func1 to the plotter with [-10, 10] as the range in X axis and "y = x^2" as title
      plotter->addPlotData (func1, -10, 10, "y = x^2");
      
      //display the plot, DONE!
      plotter->plot ();
      
      return 0;
    }

If this program is compiled and run, you will get the following output

.. image:: images/pcl_plotter_x2.png
  :width: 640
  

Basic code structure
--------------------

The following snippet shows the basic structure of code for using PCLPlotter

.. code-block:: cpp
    
    ...
    //1. define a plotter. Change the colorscheme if you want some different colorscheme in auto-coloring.
    pcl::visualization::PCLPlotter *plotter = new PCLPlotter ("My Plotter");
    
    ...
    //2. add data to be plotted using addPlotData* () functions
    plotter->addPlotData* ();
    
    ...
    //3. add some properties if required
    plotter->setWindowSize (900, 600);
    plotter->setYTitle ("this is my own function");
    
    ...
    //4. display the plot
    plotter->plot ()
    
All the subsequent sections will elaborate the above concept in detail.    

Auto-coloring
=============
You have the choice to add your own color to the plot in addPlotData*() functions. But if left empty, the plotter will auto-color depending upon a color-scheme. 
The default color-scheme is ``vtkColorSeries::SPECTRUM`` which contains 7 different (normal) hues over the entire spectrum. The other values are ``vtkColorSeries::WARM``, ``vtkColorSeries::COOL``, ``vtkColorSeries::BLUES``, ``vtkColorSeries::WILD_FLOWER``, ``vtkColorSeries::CITRUS``.
You can change the colorscheme by  *setColorScheme ()* function. To reflect the effect of the color-scheme to all the plots call this function before calling any *addPlotData\*()* functions.


Different types of plot input
==============================
Have a look at the *addPlotData()* functions in the documentation for their detailed signatures. The prototypes pretty much tell about their functionalities. The following subsections contains some of the important input method of the plot.

Point-Correspondences
---------------------
This the most fundamental way of providing input. Provide the point correspondences, that is (x,y) coordinates, for the plot using a vector<pair> in *addPlotData* 

.. code-block:: cpp

    ...
    vector<pair<double, double> > data;
    populateData (data);
    plotter->addPlotData (data,"cos");
    ...
    
The other ways of input for point correspondences are two arrays of same length denoting the X and Y values of the correspondences.

Table
-----
This is same as the previous one except the fact that the user stores the correspondences in a text file in the form of an space delimited table. This forms a substitute for the plotting using MS Excel. A very simple executable (without decoration) which performs the functionalities of MS Excel Plotter will be the following.

.. code-block:: cpp

    #include<pcl/visualization/pcl_plotter.h> 
    
    int 
    main (int argc, char ** argv)
    {
      pcl::visualization::PCLPlotter * plotter = new PCLPlotter ();      
      plotter->addPlotData (argv[1]);
      plotter->plot ();
      
      return 0;
    }


Polynomial and Rational Functions
---------------------------------
Polynomial are defined in terms of vector of coefficients and Rational functions are defined in terms of pair of polynomial (pair of numerator and denominator) . See the definition in the documentation. The following snippet plots the function y = 1/x

.. code-block:: cpp

    ...
    vector<double> func1 (1,0);
    func1[0] = 1; 
    vector<double> func2 (2,0);
    func1[1] = 1; 
    
    plotter->addPlotData (std::make_pair (func1, func2),-10, 10, "y = 1/x");
    ...

A custom explicit function
--------------------------
User can specify a custom function, *f* depicting the relation: *Y = f(X)* in the form of a callback


.. code-block:: cpp

    ...
    double 
    identity (double val)
    {
      return val;
    }
    ...
    
    ...
    plotter->addPlotData (identity,-10, 10,"identity");
    ...


Adding other properties and decorations
=======================================

One can add other properties of the plot like *title*, *legends*, *background colours* etc. You can call these functions at any time before any display (*plot()/spin\*()*) function call.

.. code-block:: cpp
    
    ...
    plotter->setTitle ("My plot"); //global title
    plotter->setXTitle ("degrees");
    plotter->setYTitle ("cos");
    plotter->setShowLegend (true); //show legends
    ...
    plotter->plot ();
    ...
    
    
Other Functionalities
=====================
PCLPlotter provides few other important functionalities other than plotting given a well defined plots and correspondences. These includes a histogram plotting functions and all functionalities of the legacy class PCLHistogramVisualizer.

'Plotting' Histogram
--------------------
PCLPlotter provides a very convenient MATLAB like histogram plotting function (`hist() <http://www.mathworks.com/help/techdoc/ref/hist.html>`_ in MATLAB). It takes raw data and bins them according to their frequency and plot them as bar chart.

.. code-block:: cpp
    
    ...
    
    vector<double> freqdata = generateNomalDistData ();
    
    plotter->addHistogramData (freqdata,10); //number of bins are 10
    
    plotter->plot ();
    ...


PCLHistogramVisualizer functions
---------------------------------
All functionalities of PCLHistogramVisualizer has been rewritten and added to the plotter with their signature retained. See the documentation for method details.

Display
=======
To display all the plots added use the simple function - *plot()*. PCLPlotter is also provided with the legacy *spin\*()* functions which can be used for animations or updating the plots with time.
The following snippet shows the functionality.

.. code-block:: cpp
    
    ...

    //data and callback defined here
    ...
    
    plotter->addPlotData (func1, -10, 10, "y = x^2");
    plotter->spinOnce (2000);    //display the plot for 2 seconds
           
    plotter->clearPlots ();
    plotter->addPlotData (identity,-10, 10,"identity");
    plotter->spinOnce (2000);
    
    plotter->clearPlots ();
    plotter->addPlotData (abs,-5, 5,"abs");
    plotter->spinOnce (2000);
    ...

Demo
=====
Following is a complete example depicting many usage of the Plotter. Copy it into a file named ``pcl_plotter_demo.cpp``.

.. literalinclude:: sources/pcl_plotter/pcl_plotter_demo.cpp
    :language: cpp
    :linenos:

Compiling and running the program
---------------------------------

Add the following lines to your `CMakeLists.txt` file:

.. literalinclude:: sources/pcl_plotter/CMakeLists.txt
   :language: cmake
   :linenos:

Compile and run the code by the following commands ::

  $ cmake .
  $ make
  $ ./pcl_plotter_demo

Video
-----

The following video shows the the output of the demo.  


.. raw:: html
    
    <iframe width="480" height="270" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/2Xgd67nkwzs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

    