CZI Nvidia makepath for bokeh

makepath is joining forces with a stellar team, including NVIDIA, to work on the Bokeh Visualization Library (Bokeh).

Thanks to the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI), created by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, we will have $250,000 in funding towards improving Bokeh to further biomedical research applications.

Bryan Van de Ven, co-creator of Bokeh, will lead the charge. We are excited to work Bryan, a well-respected software engineer with a long history of supporting open source communities.

Bokeh was one of seventeen projects awarded a grant as part of CZI’s Essential Open Source Software for Science (EOSS) program, which is focused on funding open source software that is essential to biomedical research.

What is Bokeh Visualization Library

Bokeh is an interactive visualization library built for modern web browsers. It is a great tool for displaying large datasets in the form of interactive plots, dashboards and apps. Bokeh is used across a variety of fields, but especially for data science. Because it is interactive, it can be a key asset for biomedical research as it simplifies visual exploration and analysis of large amounts of data. 

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative

The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative was created to focus on three core areas: education, justice and opportunity. The CZI Open Science Program is working to increase the open sharing of scientific knowledge and outputs. Through open source tools and libraries that support scientific discovery, users can build upon each other’s work in a spirit of transparency and collaboration. 

What Are WE Doing?

The three main areas of improvement we will focus on are:

  • support for mathematical notations in Bokeh plots (through the addition of LaTeX)
  • extension of SVG output options
  • ongoing maintenance and increase in contributors towards long-term sustainability

LaTeX is a documentation tool widely used for scientific publications. Being able to use LaTeX syntax, particularly for mathematical notations within Bokeh, will be an asset. 

We will also work on improving the capability to generate SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) outputs for plots in a variety of layouts. SVG is a file format for rendering high quality images and is useful, practically in terms of size, load time, resolution and animation/interactive capabilities.  This will allow users to more easily customize how they display visual data associated with research findings and publications. 

 

Lastly, we will focus on maintenance related to documentation, bug fixing and setting up a healthy pipeline of new contributors and future leaders within the project team.

makepath + Bokeh

Some members of the makepath team are active Bokeh contributors, so we are thrilled to further our work on Bokeh towards new and exciting applications that extend across many fields.

The makepath team will work with core developers of the library as well as contributors from Revionics and Vellore Institute of Technology.

A huge thank you to CZI for making this possible, and for championing the development of open source libraries to support advances in biomedical research and much more.

Do you have any questions about this project? Drop us a line at contact@makepath.com.

 

References:

  1. “How to write an algorithm in latex (2 methods).” YouTube, uploaded by Engineer2009Ali, 9 June 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7Z7tvCkQrg.
  2. “What is an SVG File Used For and Why Developers Should be Using Them.” Delicious Brains Inc., 21 Jan. 2021, https://deliciousbrains.com/svg-advantages-developers/.

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