geom

package
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 Go to latest Published: Sep 4, 2026 License: MIT Imports: 12 Imported by: 0

Documentation

Overview

Package geom holds the visual marks a chart is made of.

A geom knows what its shape is and never how it is rendered: it reads columns, asks the scales where values go, and emits IR. It has no reference to a backend, no knowledge of SVG or raster, and no opinion about layout beyond the rectangle it is given.

Index

Constants

This section is empty.

Variables

View Source 
var ErrCategorical = errors.New("refract/geom: categorical column on a continuous scale")

ErrCategorical reports a text column mapped onto an axis that has no position for a name.

View Source 
var ErrNoColumn = errors.New("refract/geom: column not found")

ErrNoColumn reports a column named by an option that the source does not have. It is returned rather than panicking because the column name usually comes from user input or a config file.

View Source 
var ErrUnknownMark = fmt.Errorf("refract/geom: unknown mark")

ErrUnknownMark reports a Desc naming a mark this package does not have.

Functions

This section is empty.

Types

type ColorGuide added in v0.3.0 

type ColorGuide struct {
	// Label titles the bar. It defaults to the name of the coloured column.
	Label string
	// Scale is the trained colour scale the bar shows.
	Scale scale.ColorScale
}

ColorGuide is the guide a layer needs when its colour comes from a continuous scale: a colourbar, not a legend swatch.

A single swatch cannot represent a ramp — it would have to pick one colour out of a continuum and label it with a column name — so a layer using ColorBy contributes one of these instead of a LegendEntry.

func (ColorGuide) Key added in v0.3.0 

func (g ColorGuide) Key() string

Key identifies a guide by what it looks like rather than by which scale object produced it.

Two layers sharing one colour scale must produce one colourbar, and so must two layers whose separate scales agree about the label, the domain and the ramp — those would be drawn identically, so showing both would only take room from the chart. Comparing the scales themselves is not available: a ColorScale is an interface, and an implementation is free to be a type that == panics on.

type Datum added in v0.5.0 

type Datum struct {
	X0, Y0, X1, Y1 float64
}

Datum carries the values an annotation is placed by. A rule uses X0 or Y0 alone, a band a pair on one axis, a segment and a region all four.

type Decimation added in v0.4.0 

type Decimation uint8

Decimation is how a layer reduces its rows before it draws them.

A plot area is a few hundred pixels wide. A column with a million rows in it therefore has thousands of rows per pixel column, and drawing all of them emits thousands of segments that land on the same handful of pixels: slower to build, slower to rasterize, larger as a file, and not one pixel different. Reducing first is not a compromise for big data, it is the accurate way to draw it.

Nothing here touches a scale's domain. A geom trains on every row and reduces only when it draws, so the axes report the data rather than the subset that survived. 

const (
	// AutoDecimation lets the layer choose — see [Decimate] for what it picks.
	AutoDecimation Decimation = iota

	// NoDecimation draws every row. It is what to ask for when the chart is
	// evidence and a reader will zoom into the vector output.
	NoDecimation

	// LTTB keeps the rows that carry a line's shape, using
	// largest-triangle-three-buckets. See [stat.LTTB].
	LTTB

	// MinMax keeps the extremes of every pixel column, so a spike one sample
	// wide still reaches full height. See [stat.MinMax].
	MinMax

	// DensityRaster counts rows per cell and draws the counts as an image
	// instead of drawing marks. See [stat.Grid].
	DensityRaster
)

The reductions. AutoDecimation is the default: a geom knows what its mark is and can see how many rows there are against how wide the plot is, which is exactly the information the choice needs.

type Desc added in v0.5.0 

type Desc struct {
	// Mark is what the layer draws.
	Mark Mark
	// Source is the layer's data. It is nil for an annotation, which takes
	// values rather than columns.
	Source data.Source

	// X, Y and Y2 name the columns mapped to the axes. ColorCol and
	// ColorScale are [ColorBy]'s two halves.
	X, Y, Y2   string
	ColorCol   string
	ColorScale scale.ColorScale

	// Label names the layer in the legend.
	Label string

	// Datum places an annotation, and Text is a note's text. Both are unused
	// by a layer that has a Source.
	Datum Datum
	Text  string

	// The styling options, one field per [Option]. A nil Color or Fill means
	// the layer takes its colour from the palette.
	Color   *ir.Color
	Fill    *ir.Color
	Width   float32
	Dash    []float32
	DashSet bool
	Tension float64
	Missing Missing
	// Marker is the shape a scatter draws, and MarkerSet reports whether the
	// layer chose it. The pair is [Dash] and DashSet again, and for the same
	// reason: a circle is both the zero value and a shape somebody may have
	// asked for, and a theme's redundant encoding replaces the first but not
	// the second.
	Marker    ir.Marker
	MarkerSet bool
	Size      float32
	BarWidth  float64
	Baseline  float64
	Opacity   float64
	Steps     StepPos
	Whisker   float64
	Outliers  bool
	Decimate  Decimation
	Budget    int
	CellSize  float64
	FontSize  float64
	HAlign    ir.HAlign
	VAlign    ir.VAlign
	Rotation  float64
	Extend    bool
}

Desc is a layer reduced to what configures it: its mark, its data, the columns it reads and the options it was given.

It exists so that a chart can be written down and read back. A Geom is an interface with three methods and no way to ask it what it is, which is right for drawing and useless for serialization — so every layer in this package answers Describer, and FromDesc turns the answer back into a layer that draws the same marks.

A field left at its zero value means "not set", exactly as leaving the corresponding Option out does. The fields that have a non-zero default — BarWidth, Whisker, Outliers, Opacity, Extend — are filled in by Describe with the default the layer is actually using, so a Desc is complete rather than partial.

func Describe added in v0.5.0 

func Describe(g Geom) (Desc, bool)

Describe reports g's configuration, or ok == false if g cannot describe itself.

type Describer added in v0.5.0 

type Describer interface {
	// Describe returns the layer's configuration.
	Describe() Desc
}

Describer is implemented by a layer that can say what it is.

It is an optional interface, like Faceter and Guided: a third-party geom that does not implement it still draws, and is simply not serializable. That is a better failure than a half-written spec — see github.com/timzifer/refract/spec.

type Faceter added in v0.3.0 

type Faceter interface {
	// Source returns the layer's data, so a facet can read the column it
	// splits on.
	Source() data.Source

	// Subset returns a copy of this layer restricted to the given rows. The
	// copy shares its configuration with the original, including any colour
	// scale — which is what makes one colour mean one thing across every
	// panel, and one colourbar enough to say so.
	Subset(rows []int) Geom
}

Faceter is implemented by a layer that can be split into panels.

Faceting is a data operation, and a geom is the only thing that knows which data it holds — so the split happens here rather than in the facet package reaching into a layer. A layer that does not implement Faceter is drawn unchanged in every panel, which is exactly right for an annotation: a threshold line belongs on all of them.

type Frame 

type Frame struct {
	// Area is the plot rectangle in device space. Scales already map into it.
	Area ir.Rect
	// X and Y are the trained, ranged scales.
	X, Y scale.Scale
	// Theme supplies defaults the geom did not override.
	Theme theme.Theme
	// Index is the geom's position among the chart's layers, used to pick a
	// default colour from the palette.
	Index int

	// Rows, when non-nil, collects which source row is behind each mark the
	// geom draws. It is nil for an ordinary render and a geom must check it
	// before doing the bookkeeping — see [Rows] and [Frame.Marks].
	Rows Rows
}

Frame is everything a geom needs to turn data into IR.

func (Frame) Marks added in v0.5.0 

func (f Frame) Marks(at []ir.Point, rows []int)

Marks reports the rows behind a set of marks, if anyone asked. A geom calls it with the positions a row landed at, whatever it then draws through them.

type Geom 

type Geom interface {
	// Train feeds the geom's data into the scales so they can establish their
	// domains. It runs before layout, because layout needs tick labels and
	// tick labels need a domain.
	Train(x, y scale.Scale) error

	// Build emits the geom's marks into b.
	Build(b ir.Backend, f Frame) error

	// Legend returns the entry this geom contributes, or ok == false if it
	// should not appear in the legend.
	Legend(f Frame) (LegendEntry, bool)
}

Geom is a layer of marks.

func Area added in v0.2.0 

func Area(src data.Source, opts ...Option) Geom

Area fills the region between a series and a baseline, or — given Y2 — the band between two series.

The upper edge is stroked in the layer's full colour and the interior is filled with a faded version of it. A band drawn in one flat colour reads as a solid object; a band with a drawn edge reads as a series with uncertainty around it, which is what an area chart is for. Use Opacity to change the fill, Fill to set it outright.

func Bar 

func Bar(src data.Source, opts ...Option) Geom

Bar draws a rectangle per row, from a baseline to the row's Y value.

func Boxplot added in v0.2.0 

func Boxplot(src data.Source, opts ...Option) Geom

Boxplot summarises the distribution of the Y column within each distinct X value: a box spanning the interquartile range, a line at the median, whiskers reaching to the furthest observation within Whisker times the IQR, and a marker for every observation beyond them.

The X column is the grouping key, so a boxplot wants many rows per X value — typically a categorical column against a scale.Ordinal axis, which also gives every box the same width. On a continuous axis the width comes from the closest pair of groups, as it does for a bar.

Whiskers stop at an observation, never at the theoretical fence. A whisker drawn out to 1.5·IQR when the data stops well short of it would be claiming a reading that does not exist.

func FromDesc added in v0.5.0 

func FromDesc(d Desc) (Geom, error)

FromDesc builds the layer d describes.

It is the inverse of Describe over every layer in this package: describing a layer and rebuilding it produces one that draws the same marks. A layer with data needs a Source; an annotation ignores one.

func HBand added in v0.3.0 

func HBand(y0, y1 float64, opts ...Option) Geom

HBand shades the horizontal strip between two Y values, across the whole plot. It is how a tolerance range or a target window is drawn.

func HLine added in v0.3.0 

func HLine(y float64, opts ...Option) Geom

HLine draws a horizontal reference line across the plot at y.

func Line 

func Line(src data.Source, opts ...Option) Geom

Line connects consecutive rows with a stroked path.

func Note added in v0.3.0 

func Note(x, y float64, text string, opts ...Option) Geom

Note places a text label at a position in data space.

Alignment is about that position: the default puts the text's start on it. Use Align to hang the label off the other side of a line it is naming.

func Region added in v0.3.0 

func Region(x0, y0, x1, y1 float64, opts ...Option) Geom

Region shades an axis-aligned rectangle in data space, bounded on both axes. HBand and VBand are the cases where one axis is unbounded.

func Scatter 

func Scatter(src data.Source, opts ...Option) Geom

Scatter draws one marker per row.

func Segment added in v0.3.0 

func Segment(x0, y0, x1, y1 float64, opts ...Option) Geom

Segment draws a straight line between two points in data space. Unlike HLine it does not span the plot, so it is what an arrow-less callout or a hand-placed trend line is made of.

func Step added in v0.2.0 

func Step(src data.Source, opts ...Option) Geom

Step connects rows with horizontal and vertical segments instead of a straight line.

It is the honest shape for anything that holds a value and then changes it — a configuration, a queue depth, a price, a state machine. A plain line between two such samples draws a gradual transition that never happened. Use Steps to say where the change falls between the two rows.

func VBand added in v0.3.0 

func VBand(x0, x1 float64, opts ...Option) Geom

VBand shades the vertical strip between two X values, across the whole plot. It is how a maintenance window or a highlighted interval is drawn.

func VLine added in v0.3.0 

func VLine(x float64, opts ...Option) Geom

VLine draws a vertical reference line across the plot at x.

type Guided added in v0.3.0 

type Guided interface {
	// ColorGuide returns the colour guide this layer contributes, or
	// ok == false if it has none.
	ColorGuide() (ColorGuide, bool)
}

Guided is implemented by a layer that paints from a continuous colour scale.

It is an optional interface rather than a method on Geom: a layer that colours itself one colour has nothing to say here, and every third-party geom would otherwise have to write a stub returning false.

type LegendEntry 

type LegendEntry struct {
	Label  string
	Color  ir.Color
	Kind   SwatchKind
	Marker ir.Marker
	Dash   []float32
	Width  float32
}

LegendEntry is a geom's contribution to the legend.

type Mark added in v0.5.0 

type Mark string

Mark names what a layer draws. It is the one word that decides which constructor built a layer, and the hinge a serialized chart turns on. 

const (
	MarkLine    Mark = "line"
	MarkScatter Mark = "scatter"
	MarkBar     Mark = "bar"
	MarkArea    Mark = "area"
	MarkStep    Mark = "step"
	MarkBoxplot Mark = "boxplot"

	MarkHLine   Mark = "hline"
	MarkVLine   Mark = "vline"
	MarkHBand   Mark = "hband"
	MarkVBand   Mark = "vband"
	MarkSegment Mark = "segment"
	MarkRegion  Mark = "region"
	MarkNote    Mark = "note"
)

The marks. These are refract's own names for its layers; the JSON spec translates them into its own vocabulary rather than the other way round, so that this package stays ignorant of any wire format.

type Missing 

type Missing uint8

Missing is the policy for NaN and infinite values in a column. 

const (
	Gap Missing = iota
	Interpolate
	Error
)

The missing-data policies. Gap is the default: a hole in the data should look like a hole, not like a straight line someone might read as real.

type Option 

type Option func(*config)

Option configures a geom. Options are shared across geom constructors: an option a given geom has no use for is accepted and ignored, which keeps the API one namespace instead of six.

func Align added in v0.3.0 

func Align(h ir.HAlign, v ir.VAlign) Option

Align sets how a text annotation sits about its position. The default is the run's start on the point, on the baseline.

func BarWidth 

func BarWidth(f float64) Option

BarWidth sets bar width as a fraction of the spacing between adjacent bars, in (0, 1]. The default is 0.8.

func Baseline 

func Baseline(v float64) Option

Baseline sets the value bars and areas grow from. The default is 0.

func Budget added in v0.4.0 

func Budget(n int) Option

Budget caps how many marks a reduced layer draws. The default is derived from the width of the plot area, which is the only number that decides how many marks are distinguishable.

It has no effect on a layer that is not reducing, and none on DensityRaster, whose resolution is the plot area itself.

func Color 

func Color(col ir.Color) Option

Color sets the mark colour, overriding the palette.

func ColorBy added in v0.2.0 

func ColorBy(col string, s scale.ColorScale) Option

ColorBy maps a numeric column through a colour scale, giving every mark its own colour. It applies to Scatter and Bar; geoms whose mark is one connected shape ignore it.

A layer coloured this way contributes a colourbar rather than a legend entry — a single swatch cannot represent a continuum. See ColorGuide.

func Dash 

func Dash(pattern ...float32) Option

Dash sets a dash pattern in device units. Dashing a series is redundant encoding: it keeps the chart readable in greyscale and for colourblind readers.

func Decimate added in v0.4.0 

func Decimate(d Decimation) Option

Decimate sets how a layer reduces its rows before drawing.

The default, AutoDecimation, picks by mark and by size:

  • a line reduces with LTTB once it holds more than a few rows per pixel column, because a line is a shape and LTTB is the reduction that keeps one;
  • a step and a band reduce with MinMax, because their ink is their extremes — a staircase is its transitions and a band is its edges;
  • a scatter switches to a DensityRaster once its markers would cover the plot area several times over, because at that point the marks overplot and the picture says more about row order than about the data;
  • a bar or a boxplot never reduces: those marks already aggregate, and there is no row-level reduction that leaves a bar a bar.

A layer whose colour comes from a column is never reduced automatically: it draws one fact per mark, and a raster of counts would answer a different question. Ask for DensityRaster explicitly to override that.

func DensityCells added in v0.4.0 

func DensityCells(px float64) Option

DensityCells sets the size of one density-raster cell in device pixels. The default is 1: one cell per pixel, which is as fine as the output can show. Larger cells trade resolution for a smaller image and a smoother picture.

func Extend added in v0.3.0 

func Extend(on bool) Option

Extend controls whether an annotation widens the axis domain to include itself. It is on by default: a threshold line the chart does not reach is still worth seeing, because "we are nowhere near the limit" is the answer the reader came for. Turn it off for an annotation that should appear only when the data reaches it.

func Fill 

func Fill(col ir.Color) Option

Fill sets a fill colour separately from the stroke colour, for geoms that have both.

func FontSize added in v0.3.0 

func FontSize(pt float64) Option

FontSize sets the type size of a text annotation in device units. The default is the theme's label size.

func Label 

func Label(s string) Option

Label names the series in the legend. It defaults to the Y column's name.

func OnMissing 

func OnMissing(m Missing) Option

OnMissing sets the NaN/Inf policy.

func Opacity added in v0.2.0 

func Opacity(f float64) Option

Opacity scales the fill alpha, in [0, 1]. The default is 1 for an explicit Fill colour and 0.25 for an area that takes its colour from the palette — a filled band has to sit behind the lines it belongs to.

func Outliers added in v0.2.0 

func Outliers(show bool) Option

Outliers turns the individual points beyond the whiskers on or off. They are on by default: a boxplot that hides them is a boxplot that hides exactly the rows a reader opened the chart to find.

func Rotate added in v0.3.0 

func Rotate(radians float64) Option

Rotate turns a text annotation about its anchor, in radians clockwise.

func Shape 

func Shape(m ir.Marker) Option

Shape sets the marker shape for scatter geoms. Setting it explicitly opts the layer out of a theme's redundant-encoding ladder — see github.com/timzifer/refract/theme.Redundant.

func Size 

func Size(s float32) Option

Size sets the marker diameter in device units.

func Steps added in v0.2.0 

func Steps(where StepPos) Option

Steps sets where a Step geom changes value.

func Tension 

func Tension(t float64) Option

Tension smooths a line. 0 (the default) is a plain polyline; values in (0, 1] progressively round the corners using a Catmull-Rom spline.

func Whisker added in v0.2.0 

func Whisker(k float64) Option

Whisker sets how far a boxplot whisker reaches, as a multiple of the interquartile range. The default is 1.5, Tukey's original choice.

func Width 

func Width(w float32) Option

Width sets the stroke width in device units.

func X 

func X(col string) Option

X selects the column mapped to the horizontal axis.

func Y 

func Y(col string) Option

Y selects the column mapped to the vertical axis.

func Y2 added in v0.2.0 

func Y2(col string) Option

Y2 selects a second Y column, turning an area into a band between the two series rather than between one series and a baseline. It is how a confidence interval or a min/max envelope is drawn.

type Rows added in v0.5.0 

type Rows interface {
	// Marks attributes device positions to source rows: rows[i] is the row
	// behind at[i], and a row of -1 marks a position that is not a row.
	//
	// Both slices are lent for the duration of the call, like everything else
	// a geom hands out — they come from a pool, and the next frame writes over
	// them.
	Marks(at []ir.Point, rows []int)
}

Rows is where a layer reports which source row is behind each mark it draws.

It exists for the one question a hit test cannot answer from geometry alone: *which row is this*. A tooltip is happy with the values under the pointer, which come from inverting the scales; highlighting the matching row of a table is not, because a neighbouring row highlighted confidently is a wrong answer rather than a missing one.

Why it is separate from drawing

What a layer *draws* and what a reader can *point at* are not the same points. A smoothed line is a Bézier path whose control points are not measurements; a staircase draws two points per row; a bar is four corners. Attributing rows to the points of a drawing call would therefore mean attributing them to whichever encoding the geom happened to use. So a geom reports its marks — the positions a row actually landed at — separately, and the two are correlated afterwards.

Cost

Nothing, unless someone is listening: Frame.Rows is nil for an ordinary render, and every geom checks it before doing the bookkeeping. See Frame.Marks.

type StepPos added in v0.2.0 

type StepPos uint8

StepPos is where a step geom changes value between two rows. 

const (
	StepPost StepPos = iota
	StepPre
	StepMid
)

The step positions. StepPost is the default: the value holds from each row until the next one, which is what a sampled signal or a state over time actually did.

type SwatchKind 

type SwatchKind uint8

SwatchKind is how a legend entry draws its sample. 

const (
	SwatchLine SwatchKind = iota
	SwatchMarker
	SwatchBox
)

The swatch kinds.

Source Files

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