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tikz.dev / PGFplots Manual

Manual for Package pgfplots
2D/3D Plots in LA, Version 1.18.1
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pgfplots

Memory and Speed considerations

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7.1Memory Limits of

pgfplots can typeset plots with several thousand points if memory limits of are configured properly. Its runtime is roughly proportional to the number of input points.113

(-tikz- diagram)

% Preamble: \pgfplotsset{width=7cm,compat=1.18} \begin{tikzpicture} \begin{axis}[ enlargelimits=0.01, title style={yshift=5pt}, title=Scatter plot with $2250$ points, ] \addplot [ blue, mark=*, only marks, mark options={scale=0.3}, ] file [skip first] {plotdata/pgfplots_scatterdata3.dat}; \end{axis} \end{tikzpicture}

(-tikz- diagram)

% Preamble: \pgfplotsset{width=7cm,compat=1.18} \begin{tikzpicture} \begin{axis}[ enlarge x limits=0.03, title=Ornstein--Uhlenbeck sample ($13000$ time steps), xlabel=$t$, ] \addplot [blue] file {plotdata/ou.dat}; \end{axis} \end{tikzpicture}

(-tikz- diagram)

% Preamble: \pgfplotsset{width=7cm,compat=1.18} % huger graphs are possible; consider lualatex \begin{tikzpicture} \begin{axis}[ title=$80 \times 80$ Smooth Surface, xlabel=$x$, ylabel=$y$, ] \addplot3 [surf,samples=80,shader=interp,domain=0:1] {sin(deg(8*pi*x))* exp(-20*(y-0.5)^2) + exp(-(x-0.5)^2*30 - (y-0.25)^2 - (x-0.5)*(y-0.25))}; \end{axis} \end{tikzpicture}

pgfplots relies completely on to do all typesetting. It uses the front-end-layer and basic layer of pgf to perform all drawing operations. For complicated plots, this may take some time, and you may want to read Chapter 8 for how to write single figures to external graphics files. Externalization is the best way to reduce typesetting time.

However, for large scale plots with a lot of points, limitations of ’s capacities are reached easily.

113 In fact, the runtime is pseudolinear: starting with about \(100{,}000\) points, it will become quadratic. This limitation applies to the path length of pgf paths as well. Furthermore, the linear runtime is not possible yet for stacked plots.