Plotting scripts

AUSAXS utilizes the custom plot format .plot. These are highly customizable text files, containing a simplified description of each part of a plot.

If you use the graphical version of AUSAXS, these files should have been automatically converted to images. Alternatively, if you use the terminal version, you must manually perform this conversion.

To convert a .plot file to an actual image, simply do the following:

• Windows: Run the executable plot.exe from the folder containing the files.
• MacOS & Linux: Run the python script python scripts/plot.py from the folder containing the files.

The script also takes an optional argument specifying the path. It will iteratively search through nested folders for .plot files.

Note

The script only recurses 3 folders deep, and skips folders with more than 30 items for safety.

When invoked on a directory containing an ausaxs.fit file, it will convert this to a semi-logarithmic and double-logarithmic plot of the fit. Note that the ausaxs.fit file is also compatible with the ATSAS plotting utility.

Customizing the plots

Tip

(Experimental) To easily change most plot scalings, supply the optional --medium or --big parameters to the program invocation, such that the call becomes ./plot <directory> <size>. Note that a dot . indicates the current directory.

Minor modifications can easily be made on the plots. To understand how, we first have to understand the file format itself.

The file itself contains a number of curve data sections, each starting with an identifier. A typical curve is stored as:

PlotDataset
x1 y1 yerr1
x2 y2 yerr2
...

PlotOptions
color tab:orange
logx 1
logy 0
...

Here, the PlotDataset section contains the data itself, while the PlotOptions section contains information on how it should be plotted. To change e.g. the color of a curve, simple replace "tab:orange" with some other color supported by matplotlib. The title, axes, legends, and so on, can all be changed in this manner.

To add or remove curves from a given plot, simply add or remove its PlotDataset and corresponding PlotOptions data sections from the .plot file.