matplotlib/matplotlib — pull request #859 by mdboom (2012-05-08 20:37:43+00:00)
Title: Make hexbin much faster

By creating a PolygonCollection containing a single polygon and a number of offsets. This allows the Agg backend to be dealing with far less data, and it allows the vector backends to write the polygon once and "use" it multiple times.

@efiring, @astraw, @ddale all seem to have had a hand in hexbin, so may be interested.