Question

I am trying to dynamically plot data contained in a matrix with Mathematica 7. The data is contained in it like this, obtained via a chemical model.

[year  H    He     Li     C     ...  C8H14+,Grain- ]
[0     0    0.03   0.009  1E-3  ...  0             ]
[100   .1   0.03   0.009  1E-3  ...  0             ]
[200   .2   0.03   0.009  1E-3  ...  0             ]
[300   .2   0.03   0.009  1E-3  ...  0             ]
[...   ...  ...   ...     ...   ...  ...           ]
[1E6   .5   0.03   0.003  1E-8  ...  1E-25         ]

The truth is, the matrix dimensions are 2001*1476 (2000 steps and first line for name, and 1475 compounds + 1 column for year), very heavy.
I am trying to plot any compound with a concentration / year plot. This works

Manipulate[
  ListLogLogPlot[data[[All, {1, i}]], PlotLabel -> data[[1, i]] ], 
  {{i, 2, "Compound"}, 2, compounds, 1}
]

where data is the matrix, and compounds a variable set at the number of modelized compounds (1475 here). “compound” is a label for the slider.
The problem is, the slider moves much to fast as a few centimeters browse through 1400+ items.
I tried to do a drop-down menu with

MenuView[
  Table[
    ListLogLogPlot[data[[All, {1, i}]],PlotLabel -> data[[1, i]]], {i, 2, compounds}
  ]
]

It also works, but this is a processor killer process (10+ minutes on a Xeon 16-core server executing 16 kernels), as Mathematica try to graph all plots before displaying any of them. Also the drop-down has no name, just a series of numbers (1 for hydrogen to 1475 for C8H14N+,Grain-), even though the plot has a name.

What I am searching a way to plot a graph only on demand, with a name display in the drop-down list (and if required H by default). OR a field where I can enter the name of the compound. This seems to be possible with Dynamic[ ] command, but I don’t manage to make it work properly.

Thanks

Answer 1

Mike’s suggestion is a good one but if you don’t want to go to the effort of putting it in a database, use the ContinuousAction->False option.

testdata = 
  Join[{Table[ToString[series[i-1]], {i, 1475}]}, 
   RandomReal[{1., 100.}, {2000, 1476}]];

Manipulate[
 ListLogLogPlot[testdata[[All, {1, i}]], 
  PlotLabel -> testdata[[1, i]]], {{i, 2, "Compound"}, 2, 1475, 1}, 
 ContinuousAction -> False]

To get a popup menu, use the {i,listofvalues} syntax for the controller specification.

Manipulate[
 ListLogLogPlot[testdata[[All, {1, i}]], 
  PlotLabel -> testdata[[1, i]]], {i, Range[2, 1475]}, 
 ContinuousAction -> False]

This works pretty fast on my system. (Two year old MacBook Pro)

A fancier version:

spec = Thread[Range[2, 1476] -> Table[ToString[series[i]], {i, 1475}]];

Manipulate[
 ListLogLogPlot[testdata[[All, {1, i}]], 
  PlotLabel -> testdata[[1, i]]], {{i, 2, "Compound"}, spec}, 
 ContinuousAction -> False]

And if all you want to do is step through the images, click on the little plus next to a slider controller to get more detailed controls.