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Re: Unbearably slow plotting (v6)

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg79551] Re: Unbearably slow plotting (v6)
  • From: Bill Rowe <readnewsciv at sbcglobal.net>
  • Date: Sun, 29 Jul 2007 00:08:56 -0400 (EDT)

On 7/28/07 at 5:25 AM, thomas.muench at gmail.com (thomas) wrote:

>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)

Hmm... I didn't try doing this plot in earlier versions of
Mathematica. But I did try this on my Apple G4 PowerBook for
various size arrays using version 6.01 and got the following results:

k   plot time

1E3 .3 seconds
1E4 .6 seconds
1E5 6 seconds
1E6 67 seconds

=46or what I would consider reasonable plots (10,000) points or
less the time to plot and render was less than 1 second.

With 1E5 and 1E6 points, this results in a plot that is
indistinguishable from a filled rectangle. That seems to be of
very little use. So, while I might be a bit impatient waiting
for Mathematica on my machine to plot 1E6 points, I don't see
why I would want to do that in the first place. What I want from
ListPlot is something to give me an idea of trends in my data.
Given real limits on display resolution and size, plotting 1E6
points typically will not provide a useful plot regardless of
how fast it plots. So why do this?
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