figures

Pretty plotting of spectra? [Ask AstroBetter]

by Jane Rigby January 27, 2012

What tools (or self-rolled code) do people prefer when making big publishable figures of spectra?  The example given was an echelle spectrum, where the spectrum is loooong, and has many spectral orders to stack onto one or more pages of the journal. Since this is a shamelessly self-generated Ask AstroBetter, I will award a beer [...]

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Digitize that figure, fast

by Jane Rigby November 17, 2011

Here’s a common workflow:  ”I want to overplot a curve from the literature on my new plot.  I could write the author and wait several days for them to dig up the plot file and send me the digitized version, but I want to compare now!” One solution is to digitize the published plot. I [...]

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What Vector Drawing Packages Are Available? [Ask AstroBetter]

by saurav March 28, 2011

Matthew K. sent in a question for our Ask AstroBetter series: What vector graphics drawing package do you use for your figures? I’ve been using xfig for all my “hand drawn” plots, but I wonder if anyone has successfully moved on to more recent drawing packages … [a package] to draw simple figures like optical [...]

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Add Symbols and Equations to IDL Figures with LaTeX and PSfrag

by saurav January 4, 2011

While IDL does support math equations and symbols—often made easier by routines like sunsymbol.pro and textoidl.pro—the results are not aesthetically pleasing. One particular instance that has annoyed many of us astronomers has been the sunsymbol (⦿). The available solutions are not ideal: the dot inside the circle is off-center in sunsymbol.pro, the vertical alignment is [...]

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Making RGB images from FITS files with python/matplotlib.

by Jessica October 22, 2010

Converting astronomical data taken in multiple filters into representative-color RGB images often provides one of the most visually appealing (and informative) views of a target. This can be done in ds9 very easily; however, if you want a little more control, then python/matplotlib can be used in a very similar fashion. I also note that [...]

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3D Plotting in Python with matplotlib mplot3d

by Jessica February 1, 2010

I recently needed to do some simple 3D plotting in python. The strongest choice as discussed on the web is Mayavi, which is part of the Enthought Python distribution. However, I have a previous python distribution already installed (via scisoft) with all of my favorite packages updated to the latest and greatest versions (e.g. matplotlib, [...]

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Your friend Convert

by Jane Rigby November 18, 2009

Do you use the tool “convert” to manipulate plots and images?  It’s simple, powerful and downright great!  Quick examples: Modify a plot for presentation use, by swapping to a black background with white lines, so it’s easier to read on a screen: > convert  -negate frompaper.ps  forscreen.jpg Make a thumbnail: > convert -geometry 50×50 big.jpg [...]

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Hungry for Plots? Get some APLpy!

by Eli July 20, 2009

Today APLpy 0.9.3 is out! It is a Python plotting package made to generate publication-quality plots in multiple formats such as EPS, PDF, PS, PNG, and SVG. APLpy was created by Thomas Robitaille and Eli Bressert, who come from a Fortran and IDL background. With Python’s ease of use, portability, and programming they decided to [...]

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