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Unbearably slow plotting (v6)

• To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
• Subject: [mg79497] Unbearably slow plotting (v6)
• From: thomas <thomas.muench at gmail.com>
• Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2007 05:25:18 -0400 (EDT)

Hello, group!

I am using Mathematica 5.2. for analyzing electrophysiological data.
The data traces are essentially just long lists of numbers (length on
the order of 10^3 to 10^6 elements per list) which I plot and then
analyze (often several traces and their average in a single plot).

A student in our lab bought the student version of the new v6 of
Mathematica, and I noticed that plotting the data traces with v6 is
much slower, so I never bothered trying to switch to v6.

Now, v6.0.1 came out, claiming to have improved speed of ListPlot,
ListLinePlot, etc, so I thought I give it another try comparing the
speeds of the various versions. The results are quiet sad.

Here are the versions (all installed on the same machine):
5.2:
In[1]:= $Version
Out[1]= 5.2 for Microsoft Windows (June 20, 2005)

6.0:
In[1]:= $Version
Out[1]= "6.0 for Microsoft Windows (32-bit) (April 27, 2007)"

6.0.1:
In[1]:= $Version
Out[1]= "6.0 for Microsoft Windows (32-bit) (June 19, 2007)"

In each version, I created some fake data:
In[2]:= SeedRandom[1];data=Table[Random[],{10^6}];

Then I "ListPlot"-ed it, while measuring the time:
In[3]:= t = AbsoluteTime[]; ListPlot[data] // Print;
Print[AbsoluteTime[] - t];
(Note: using this "AbsoluteTime[]" construct rather then
Timing[ListPlot[...]] also counts the time needed for rendering the
plot in the FrontEnd)

The results are:
5.2: 1.3 sec
6.0.1: 34.5 sec
6.0: -- (I aborted after about 3 minutes or so during which v6.0 not
only did not produce a result, but also more or less locked down the
resources of the computer - so there seems to be an improvement in
6.0.1 over 6.0)

Interestingly, when I plotted shorter data that 6.0 was able to handle
(10^4 and 10^5 data points instead of 10^6), 6.0 seemed to be slightly
faster than 6.0.1

Anyway, my conclusion is that v6 is not usable AT ALL for my
application, which is a bummer given the overall improvements that are
apparently incorporated in v6.

I wondered if there might be something wrong with some secrete
settings that make the plotting so slow? Any other comments from the
group?

Thank you,
Thomas

• Follow-Ups:
  • Re: Unbearably slow plotting (v6)
    • From: Murray Eisenberg <murray@math.umass.edu>