Chapter 22

plotting

Plotting Results

Spinning Up ships with a simple plotting utility for interpreting results. Run it with:

code

python -m spinup.run plot [path/to/output_directory ...] [--legend [LEGEND ...]] 
    [--xaxis XAXIS] [--value [VALUE ...]] [--count] [--smooth S]
    [--select [SEL ...]] [--exclude [EXC ...]]

Positional Arguments:

code

*strings*. As many log directories (or prefixes to log directories, which the plotter will autocomplete internally) as you'd like to plot from. Logdirs will be searched recursively for experiment outputs.

.. admonition:: You Should Know

    The internal autocompleting is really handy! Suppose you have run several experiments, with the aim of comparing performance between different algorithms, resulting in a log directory structure of:

    .. parsed-literal:

code

            data/
                bench_algo1/
                    bench_algo1-seed0/
                    bench_algo1-seed10/
                bench_algo2/
                    bench_algo2-seed0/
                    bench_algo2-seed10/

        You can easily produce a graph comparing algo1 and algo2 with:

        .. parsed-literal:

code

        python spinup/utils/plot.py data/bench_algo

    relying on the autocomplete to find both ``data/bench_algo1`` and ``data/bench_algo2``.

Optional Arguments:

code

*strings*. Optional way to specify legend for the plot. The plotter legend will automatically use the ``exp_name`` from the ``config.json`` file, unless you tell it otherwise through this flag. This only works if you provide a name for each directory that will get plotted. (Note: this may not be the same as the number of logdir args you provide! Recall that the plotter looks for autocompletes of the logdir args: there may be more than one match for a given logdir prefix, and you will need to provide a legend string for each one of those matches---unless you have removed some of them as candidates via selection or exclusion rules (below).)

*string*. Pick what column from data is used for the x-axis.

*strings*. Pick what columns from data to graph on the y-axis. Submitting multiple values will produce multiple graphs. Defaults to ``Performance``, which is not an actual output of any algorithm. Instead, ``Performance`` refers to either ``AverageEpRet``, the correct performance measure for the on-policy algorithms, or ``AverageTestEpRet``, the correct performance measure for the off-policy algorithms. The plotter will automatically figure out which of ``AverageEpRet`` or ``AverageTestEpRet`` to report for each separate logdir.

Optional flag. By default, the plotter shows y-values which are averaged across all results that share an ``exp_name``, which is typically a set of identical experiments that only vary in random seed. But if you'd like to see all of those curves separately, use the ``--count`` flag.


*int*. Smooth data by averaging it over a fixed window. This parameter says how wide the averaging window will be.

*strings*. Optional selection rule: the plotter will only show curves from logdirs that contain all of these substrings.

*strings*. Optional exclusion rule: plotter will only show curves from logdirs that do not contain these substrings.

*strings*. As many log directories (or prefixes to log directories, which the plotter will autocomplete internally) as you'd like to plot from. Logdirs will be searched recursively for experiment outputs. .. admonition:: You Should Know The internal autocompleting is really handy! Suppose you have run several experiments, with the aim of comparing performance between different algorithms, resulting in a log directory structure of: .. parsed-literal:

data/ bench_algo1/ bench_algo1-seed0/ bench_algo1-seed10/ bench_algo2/ bench_algo2-seed0/ bench_algo2-seed10/ You can easily produce a graph comparing algo1 and algo2 with: .. parsed-literal:

*strings*. Optional way to specify legend for the plot. The plotter legend will automatically use the ``exp_name`` from the ``config.json`` file, unless you tell it otherwise through this flag. This only works if you provide a name for each directory that will get plotted. (Note: this may not be the same as the number of logdir args you provide! Recall that the plotter looks for autocompletes of the logdir args: there may be more than one match for a given logdir prefix, and you will need to provide a legend string for each one of those matches---unless you have removed some of them as candidates via selection or exclusion rules (below).) *string*. Pick what column from data is used for the x-axis. *strings*. Pick what columns from data to graph on the y-axis. Submitting multiple values will produce multiple graphs. Defaults to ``Performance``, which is not an actual output of any algorithm. Instead, ``Performance`` refers to either ``AverageEpRet``, the correct performance measure for the on-policy algorithms, or ``AverageTestEpRet``, the correct performance measure for the off-policy algorithms. The plotter will automatically figure out which of ``AverageEpRet`` or ``AverageTestEpRet`` to report for each separate logdir. Optional flag. By default, the plotter shows y-values which are averaged across all results that share an ``exp_name``, which is typically a set of identical experiments that only vary in random seed. But if you'd like to see all of those curves separately, use the ``--count`` flag. *int*. Smooth data by averaging it over a fixed window. This parameter says how wide the averaging window will be. *strings*. Optional selection rule: the plotter will only show curves from logdirs that contain all of these substrings. *strings*. Optional exclusion rule: plotter will only show curves from logdirs that do not contain these substrings.