lines

lines(positions)
lines(x, y)
lines(x, y, z)

Creates a connected line plot for each element in (x, y, z), (x, y) or positions.

NaN values are displayed as gaps in the line.

Attributes

Specific to Lines

  • color=theme(scene, :linecolor) sets the color of the line. If no color is set, multiple calls to line! will cycle through the axis color palette. Otherwise, one can set one color per line point by passing a Vector{<:Colorant}, or one colorant for the whole line. If color is a vector of numbers, the colormap args are used to map the numbers to colors.

  • cycle::Vector{Symbol} = [:color] sets which attributes to cycle when creating multiple plots.

  • linestyle::Union{Nothing, Symbol, Linestyle} = nothing sets the pattern of the line e.g. :solid, :dot, :dashdot. For custom patterns look at Linestyle(Number[...]).

  • linewidth::Union{Real, Vector} = 1.5 sets the width of the line in pixel units.

Color attributes

  • colormap::Union{Symbol, Vector{<:Colorant}} = :viridis sets the colormap that is sampled for numeric colors. PlotUtils.cgrad(...), Makie.Reverse(any_colormap) can be used as well, or any symbol from ColorBrewer or PlotUtils. To see all available color gradients, you can call Makie.available_gradients().

  • colorscale::Function = identity color transform function. Can be any function, but only works well together with Colorbar for identity, log, log2, log10, sqrt, logit, Makie.pseudolog10 and Makie.Symlog10.

  • colorrange::Tuple{<:Real, <:Real} sets the values representing the start and end points of colormap.

  • nan_color::Union{Symbol, <:Colorant} = RGBAf(0,0,0,0) sets a replacement color for color = NaN.

  • lowclip::Union{Nothing, Symbol, <:Colorant} = nothing sets a color for any value below the colorrange.

  • highclip::Union{Nothing, Symbol, <:Colorant} = nothing sets a color for any value above the colorrange.

  • alpha = 1.0 sets the alpha value of the colormap or color attribute. Multiple alphas like in plot(alpha=0.2, color=(:red, 0.5), will get multiplied.

Generic attributes

  • visible::Bool = true sets whether the plot will be rendered or not.

  • overdraw::Bool = false sets whether the plot will draw over other plots. This specifically means ignoring depth checks in GL backends.

  • transparency::Bool = false adjusts how the plot deals with transparency. In GLMakie transparency = true results in using Order Independent Transparency.

  • fxaa::Bool = true adjusts whether the plot is rendered with fxaa (anti-aliasing).

  • inspectable::Bool = true sets whether this plot should be seen by DataInspector.

  • depth_shift::Float32 = 0f0 adjusts the depth value of a plot after all other transformations, i.e. in clip space, where 0 <= depth <= 1. This only applies to GLMakie and WGLMakie and can be used to adjust render order (like a tunable overdraw).

  • model::Makie.Mat4f sets a model matrix for the plot. This replaces adjustments made with translate!, rotate! and scale!.

  • space::Symbol = :data sets the transformation space for box encompassing the volume plot. See Makie.spaces() for possible inputs.

Examples

using CairoMakie


f = Figure()
Axis(f[1, 1])

xs = 0:0.01:10
ys = 0.5 .* sin.(xs)

lines!(xs, ys)
lines!(xs, ys .- 1, linewidth = 5)
lines!(xs, ys .- 2, linewidth = 5, color = ys)
lines!(xs, ys .- 3, linestyle = :dash)

f

Linestyles

using CairoMakie


f = Figure()
Axis(f[1, 1])

xs = 0:0.01:10
ys = 0.5 .* sin.(xs)

for (i, lw) in enumerate([1, 2, 3])
    lines!(xs, ys .- i/6, linestyle = nothing, linewidth = lw)
    lines!(xs, ys .- i/6 .- 1, linestyle = :dash, linewidth = lw)
    lines!(xs, ys .- i/6 .- 2, linestyle = :dot, linewidth = lw)
    lines!(xs, ys .- i/6 .- 3, linestyle = :dashdot, linewidth = lw)
    lines!(xs, ys .- i/6 .- 4, linestyle = :dashdotdot, linewidth = lw)
    lines!(xs, ys .- i/6 .- 5, linestyle = Linestyle([0.5, 1.0, 1.5, 2.5]), linewidth = lw)
end

f

Dealing with outline artifacts in GLMakie

In GLMakie 3D line plots can generate outline artifacts depending on the order line segments are rendered in. Currently there are a few ways to mitigate this problem, but they all come at a cost:

  • fxaa = true will disable the native anti-aliasing of line segments and use fxaa instead. This results in less detailed lines.

  • transparency = true will disable depth testing to a degree, resulting in all lines being rendered without artifacts. However with this lines will always have some level of transparency.

  • overdraw = true will disable depth testing entirely (read and write) for the plot, removing artifacts. This will however change the z-order of line segments and allow plots rendered later to show up on top of the lines plot.

using GLMakie

ps = rand(Point3f, 500)
cs = rand(500)
f = Figure(size = (600, 650))
Label(f[1, 1], "base", tellwidth = false)
lines(f[2, 1], ps, color = cs, markersize = 20, fxaa = false)
Label(f[1, 2], "fxaa = true", tellwidth = false)
lines(f[2, 2], ps, color = cs, markersize = 20, fxaa = true)
Label(f[3, 1], "transparency = true", tellwidth = false)
lines(f[4, 1], ps, color = cs, markersize = 20, transparency = true)
Label(f[3, 2], "overdraw = true", tellwidth = false)
lines(f[4, 2], ps, color = cs, markersize = 20, overdraw = true)
f