Frontends

A guide to choosing a visualization frontend.

In this guide, you'll learn:

• What frontends are

• The differences between vpython_frontend and plotly_frontend

What are Frontends?

Frontends are functions that return another set of functions to display a simulation. All three display functions (live, run, and show - see Live, Show and Run) take a frontend as an argument.

Included Frontends

Currently, there are only 2 frontends included with axtools:

• vpython_frontend

• plotly_frontend

Each has there own use cases and drawbacks.

Frontend	Pros	Cons	Live?	Static?
VPython	Simple, colorful, and easy to use	Doesn't show details
Plotly	Shows numbers and includes lots of navigation options	Doesn't support real-time displays
Matplotlib 2D	Offers a lot of data	Can be a bit harder to understand
Matplotlib 3D	Simple and to the point	Less features than others