Add stem plots for sampled data systems

[jonniedie]

Description

Discretely sampled timeseries data is usually best visualized as a stem plot. It is helpful especially in cases where single-point impulse functions are viewed, since it can be hard to see them on scatter plots (see below)

Attribution

• I am listed in .zenodo.json (see How to get acknowledged #3503)

Things to consider

• Does it work on log scales?
• Does it work in layouts?
• Does it work in recipes?
• Does it work with multiple series in one call?
• PR includes or updates tests?
• PR includes or updates documentation?

[briederer]

Out of curiosity, how is this different from the 'sticks' linestyle?

[jonniedie]

Out of curiosity, how is this different from the 'sticks' linestyle?

I guess nothing, but this is the first time I've heard of the sticks linestyle after trying really hard to find something that would do this. For example, below is what the documentation shows for linestyle. And none of the backends I've tried so far support sticks. Besides this, linestyle doesn't seem like the right place for this, as the other linestyles just change how the line is styled, not the shape/path of the line itself.

I'm not necessarily against calling it sticks, but stem is more in line with pyplot and MATLAB, so it would be nice to at least have a stem alias to make it more discoverable for people coming from those backgrounds.

[BeastyBlacksmith]

And none of the backends I've tried so far support sticks.

What exactly did you try?
At least on GR and PGFPlotsX

sticks(1:10, marker = true)

works