mATLASplotlib¶
This package provides wrappers around matplotlib functionality produce plots compatible with the style guidelines for the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. It is particularly aimed at users who are not familiar with matplotlib syntax. Basic usage involves creating a canvas, plotting a dataset and saving the output to a file. For example, something like
from mATLASplotlib import canvases
canvas = canvases.Simple(shape="rectangular")
x, y = [0, 1, 2, 3], [0, 1, 4, 9]
canvas.plot_dataset(x, y, style="scatter", label="Example points", colour="black")
canvas.save_to_file("simple_example")
will produce a minimal scatter plot with automatically determined axis limits and save this to a PDF (if not otherwise specified).
Examples¶
Examples which reproduce the plots on this page (https://twiki.cern.ch/twiki/bin/viewauth/AtlasProtected/PubComPlotStyle) are included in the examples folder.
Font setup¶
To allow matplotlib to use Helvetica (required for ATLAS style) follow the guidelines from here http://blog.olgabotvinnik.com/blog/2012/11/15/2012-11-15-how-to-set-helvetica-as-the-default-sans-serif-font-in/ (reproduced below). For Linux users, adding the .ttf fonts to ~/.fonts and removing ~/.matplotlib/fontList.cache ~/.matplotlib/fontManager.cache ~/.matplotlib/ttffont.cache should be enough.
1. Download and install Fondu to convert Mac-Helvetica to ttf-Helvetica brew install fondu
2. Find Helvetica on your system Probably somewhere like: /System/Library/Fonts/Helvetica.dfont
- Find where matplotlib stores its data
At python prompt run: import matplotlib; matplotlib.matplotlib_fname() and get output like: u’/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/matplotlib/mpl-data/matplotlibrc’
We need to put the .ttf in this path in fonts/ttf
4. Create the .ttf sudo fondu -show /System/Library/Fonts/Helvetica.dfont
5. Edit your .matplotlibrc file Edit ~/.matplotlib/matplotlibrc, find the line font.sans-serif : Bitstream Vera Sans, … and put Helvetica at the beginning of this list
6. Force matplotlib to re-scan the font lists Now we need to force matplotlib to re-create the font lists by removing the files. rm ~/.matplotlib/fontList.cache ~/.matplotlib/fontManager.cache ~/.matplotlib/ttffont.cache