Life Graph

Inspired by this post, I decided I wanted to make my own graph of my life. In the comments on that post, there are many other graphs available, but most of them add lots of different things that I did not care for. They looked extremely nice, but not nearly as simple as the box of squares originally showed in the post. The simplicity of seeing my life on a tiny grid really hit me. I wanted to recreate that.

The folks at waitbutwhy.com own the idea behind this work. They gave me permission to produce and realease this code for free use by everyone else.

A Life Graph

A Simple Grid

To make a grid of squares, this is all you need. By default, the axes instance is constrained to a smaller portion of the page to make room for annotations on the edge of the graph. The axes_rect argument ensures that the graph takes up more room.

from lifegraph.lifegraph import Lifegraph, Papersize
from datetime import date

birthday = date(1990, 11, 1)
g = Lifegraph(birthday, dpi=300, size=Papersize.A4, axes_rect=[.1, .1, .8, .8])
g.save("grid.png")

Add a Title

from lifegraph.lifegraph import Lifegraph, Papersize
from datetime import date

birthday = date(1990, 11, 1)
g = Lifegraph(birthday, dpi=300, size=Papersize.A4)
g.add_title("Time is Not Equal to Money")
g.save("grid.png")

Add a Watermark

from lifegraph.lifegraph import Lifegraph, Papersize
from datetime import date

birthday = date(1990, 11, 1)
g = Lifegraph(birthday, dpi=300, size=Papersize.A4)
g.add_title("Time is Not Equal to Money")
g.add_watermark("Your Life")
g.save("grid.png")

Display and Change the Max Age

from lifegraph.lifegraph import Lifegraph, Papersize
from datetime import date

birthday = date(1990, 11, 1)
g = Lifegraph(birthday, dpi=300, size=Papersize.A4, max_age=100)
g.add_title("Time is Not Equal to Money")
g.show_max_age_label()
g.save("images/grid_maxage.png")

Adding a life event

You can add events of your life. The graph is initialized from your birthday and where the events are placed on the graph is calculated from your birthdate and the day that the event happened. Notice the different ways that you can set the color and that you can specify which side you'd like to place the text if you don't like the default.

from lifegraph.lifegraph import Lifegraph, Papersize, Side
from datetime import date

birthday = date(1990, 11, 1)
g = Lifegraph(birthday, dpi=300, size=Papersize.A4, max_age=100)

g.add_title("Time is Not Equal to Money")
g.show_max_age_label()

# a random color will be chosen if you don't provide one
g.add_life_event('My first paycheck', date(2006, 8, 23))

# colors can be added as hex strings
# and you can hint at which side you want the text on
g.add_life_event('Graduated\nhighschool', date(2008, 6, 2), color="#00FF00", side=Side.LEFT)

# or RGB
g.add_life_event('First car purchased', date(2010, 7, 14), color = (1, 0, 0))

g.save("images/grid_life_event.png")

Adding an Era

You can color parts of your life that marked an era.

from lifegraph.lifegraph import Lifegraph, Papersize
from datetime import date

birthday = date(1990, 11, 1)
g = Lifegraph(birthday, dpi=300, size=Papersize.A4, max_age=100)

g.add_title("Time is Not Equal to Money")
g.show_max_age_label()

# random color will be used
g.add_era('That one thing\nI did as a kid', date(2000, 3, 4), date(2005, 8, 22))

# you can also choose the color
g.add_era('Running for city\ncouncil', date(2019, 12, 10), date(2020, 11, 5), color="#4423fe")

g.save("images/grid_era_span.png")

Adding an Era Span

Or you can use this dumbbell shape to denote eras

from lifegraph.lifegraph import Lifegraph, Papersize
from datetime import date

birthday = date(1990, 11, 1)
g = Lifegraph(birthday, dpi=300, size=Papersize.A4, max_age=100)

g.add_title("Time is Not Equal to Money")
g.show_max_age_label()

# random color will be used
g.add_era_span('That one thing\nI did as a kid', date(2000, 3, 4), date(2005, 8, 22))

# you can also choose the color
g.add_era_span('Running for city\ncouncil', date(2019, 12, 10), date(2020, 11, 5), color="#4423fe")

g.save("images/grid_era_span.png")

Add an image

You can add images to the axes instance.

from lifegraph.lifegraph import Lifegraph, Papersize
from datetime import date

birthday = date(1990, 11, 1)
g = Lifegraph(birthday, dpi=300, size=Papersize.A4, max_age=100)

g.add_title("Time is Not Equal to Money")
g.show_max_age_label()

g.add_image("couple.jpg", alpha=0.5)

g.save("images/grid_add_image.png")

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