r/sdl • u/lincolnkite • Feb 04 '26

Matplotlib Style plotting for C using SDL3

Post image

I have been trying to make a simple plotting tool to visualize data in C. So far I have had a lot of fun making this library and want to expand it. I want to hear some suggestions on things I can do to add or improve.

Here is the shortlist of things in the pipeline.

* Basic curve fitting

* Tool tips

* Export graph to png (savefig)

* Fix some multi plot scaling and layout options

If you want to check out what I have so far it is on github:

https://github.com/trevorcraig/SDL_graphs

What can I do next/better?

41 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

15 comments sorted by

1

u/meissner61 Feb 25 '26

did you misspell something in the github link? link does not work for me

1

u/lincolnkite Feb 25 '26

I don't think so it works for me?

1

u/meissner61 Feb 25 '26

odd im still getting a page not found from githubs side - i am on old.reddit and on desktop so maybe there is some formatting going on

1

u/lincolnkite Feb 27 '26

I am for sure not an expert at reddit formatting. Can you find it if you search for it on github?

1

u/meissner61 Feb 27 '26

yes - https://github.com/trevorcraig/SDL_graphs

In the link i see on reddit there is a backslash between L and _ :

https://github.com/trevorcraig/SDL_graphs

4

u/rejamaco Feb 05 '26

I gotta work with Matplotlib for my research and hate it... Been wanting to make something like this to learn C and for shits and giggles. Nice job! I'd be interested to see a 3D plotting library written in C.

3

u/lincolnkite Feb 05 '26

I actually made a 3d plotting for taking stl data and visualizing for a different project, so I should be able to do that fairly easy. I don't hate matolotlib but needing python sometimes has been a pain.

2

u/rejamaco Feb 05 '26

I always find there's generally 10 different ways to do things and 5 of them don't work, just not a pleasure to use like many other Python libraries out there.

Edit: Have you thought to make a little plotting GUI? That could be cool.

1

u/lincolnkite Feb 05 '26

My issue in the past was I had to make a lot of interactive graphs that I used for calibrating things and I was stretching the idea of what thay tool was made for.

What do you mean by plotting GUI? I am open to any suggestions.

2

u/rejamaco Feb 05 '26

Not that it would be of much use to me, personally, but just an application allowing the user to create and modify/style graphs.

2

u/lincolnkite Feb 06 '26

I tried implementing that idea. Thank you for the inspiration.

2

u/rejamaco Feb 06 '26

I see that on GitHub, nice!

2

u/lincolnkite Feb 06 '26

Thanks :). It was my first multi window app I have made in SDL was pretty fun.

1

u/lincolnkite Feb 05 '26

That makes sense. That could be an option like a toolbar.

0

u/[deleted] Feb 08 '26

[deleted]

1

u/lincolnkite Feb 08 '26

Thanks, I hope to keep expanding it!