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Week 4: 2D Arrays and Plotting

2D arrays allow data to be stored and plotted in two dimensions, like pixels in an image. NumPy functions like np.zeros and np.ones can create 2D arrays of specified sizes. Plotting in Matplotlib begins with plt.plot to show data, and options like color, symbols, and errorbars can customize plots. Well-labeled and formatted plots clearly communicate results.

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59 views

Week 4: 2D Arrays and Plotting

2D arrays allow data to be stored and plotted in two dimensions, like pixels in an image. NumPy functions like np.zeros and np.ones can create 2D arrays of specified sizes. Plotting in Matplotlib begins with plt.plot to show data, and options like color, symbols, and errorbars can customize plots. Well-labeled and formatted plots clearly communicate results.

Uploaded by

Kaleab Tekle
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Week 4

2D Arrays and Plotting


2D arrays
• So far, we have been working with one dimensional arrays (e.g.
array([1,2,3,4,5,…])

• With “matching” 1D arrays for x and y we can plot 2D data- such as


position vs time. Each “data point” contains two pieces of
information: x, and y (or time and position).

• A 2D array allows us to plot 3D data points- x,y,z. For example, we


may have two position variables and one value variable.
2D Arrays
• The common way to think about it is like a photograph. If you have a
jpeg image, it is made up of a bunch of pixels (which relate back to
the pixel detectors on the camera’s CCD).

• You can look at an individual pixel (say, (512,512)), and you will find
that that pixel has a number/value (which for jpeg relates to how
bright/what color that pixel should be).

• The simpler case in astro imaging is usually that each pixel contains
monochromatic information- it is just an intensity. ˜
Defining a 2D array

• We can define 2D arrays in several ways: manually, via hstack, and


via vstack.

• Example
2D Arrays

• More often than not, we pull 2D arrays out of data files rather than
constructing them ourselves

• Classic example is FITS image files (from telescopes). We will have


a tutorial on them next week.

• Note: You can have even higher dimensional arrays- it all depends
on how much information you need to store.
Matrices
• Numpy has functions for defining matrices. (np.matrix)

• In my experience, because arrays operate on matrix rules, it usually


doesn’t make a difference whether you use np.array to make a
matrix structure or np.matrix.

• Other useful linear algebra commands: np.dot, np.cross,


np.linalg.inv (take the inverse), np.transpose, np.diag, np.eye (for
identity matrix)
Exercise

• Construct a 10x10 array of zeros (as efficiently as you can)


Solution 1

• arr = np.zeros(10)

• A = np.vstack((arr,arr,arr,arr,arr,arr,arr,arr,arr,arr))
Better Solution

• the numpy functions like np.ones, np.zeros let you specify 2


dimensionality

• A = np.zeros((10,10))

• B = np.ones((5,5))
Exercise

[1,2,3]
• construct a 2d array, 3x3, that looks like this: [4,5,6]
[7,8,9]
• (Use np.arange)
Solution

• a1 = np.arange(1,4)

• a2 = np.arange(4,7)

• a3 = np.arange(8,10)

• A = np.vstack((a1,a2,a3))
Better Solution

• Numpy has a reshape command for Arrays- you can reshape a 1D


matrix into a 2D like this:

• A = np.arange(1,10)

• A =A.reshape((3,3))

• in_one_line = np.arange(1,10).reshape((3,3))
Plotting

• Plotting is one of the most important parts of coding, because your


results don’t mean anything unless you can communicate them.

• Plotting can take on basically infinite customization- way too much


to cover here. We will get into the basics, and a few of the bells and
whistles of matplotlib. Beyond that, you basically look up what fancy
thing you need when you need it.
Basic Plotting

• We have already done this: absolute minimum- if you have 2 equal


length arrays, one with x values and one with y values, you can use
plt.plot(x,y) to plot a connected blue line (by default) of y vs x.

• The first change you can make to this is to plot individual data
points rather than a continuous line (since data is never continuous
right??)
Plotting points individually

• The plt.plot command has a ton of specifiable arguments you can


put in (use help(plt.plot) to pull up a lot of the options.

• The basic ones are color and line style

• plt.plot(x,y, ‘r+’) would plot the data points as red plusses (there are
a lot of shortcuts)
Fake data: x = np.arange(100)
y = x**2
y2 = y + 550 * np.random.normal(size=x.shape)

plt.plot(x,y2) plt.plot(x,y2,’r+’)
plt.plot(x,y2,’r+’,label=‘Measured position’)
plt.legend(loc=2)
We can plot multiple data sets on the same graph
just by plotting one after the other without creating a new figure
(But it will only look good if they are in similar ranges)
You can combine a color and a symbol in one string, e.g. ‘yD’ for yellow Diamond
Fun note: once you learn latex, you can use latex commands in your plot labels
On colors
• If those aren't enough colors for you, matplotlib also allows you to
select color by rgb value or hex…

• While this ‘r+’ shortcut works on plt.plot, it doesn’t on others (like


plt.axvline, as we discovered).

• Experimentation and google are really the only way to be sure about
those

• Other shortcuts include c=‘r’ for specifying a color, ls for line style,
etc… Its a mess
Errorbars
• You can use the plt.errorbar function to plot data with error bars.
Basically you can either specify a single error value for all data
points, or have arrays (same length as x and y) with the errors for x
and y

• plt.errorbar(x,y,xerr=err1, yerr=err2) #where err1, err2 are the error


arrays. you can also specify a symbol with fmt=

• By default it assumes the same error above and below a point, but
you CAN change that (rarely have to)
y_error = y2/np.random.randint(1,20)
plt.errorbar(x,y2,yerr=y_error, fmt='s', c='r', label='Data')
Advice
• Always title and label the axes of your graphs (you can see how in
earlier tutorials).

• Use plt.tight_layout() always, to reduce the whitespace around the


plots that get saved out.

• If you need some wacky plot type, go to http://matplotlib.org/


gallery.html and look till you see something close enough to your
needs that you can adapt it.
Final thoughts

• The example document for this week contains a bunch of different


combinations of plotting data points. Try running them yourself, and
see how the commands translate into things like legends and
special symbols.

• From these examples you should be able to cobble together what


you need in your own code.

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