Plotting

Zero relies on the powerful Matplotlib plotting library. In all cases, the plots produced by Zero can be further modified in ways supported by Matplotlib.

Plotting in analysis scripts

In scripts, plots are generated by the call to the solution’s plot_responses() or plot_noise() methods. These support many display options, as listed below. The return value from these methods is the Figure, which can be further modified.

After calling either plot_responses() or plot_noise(), you can show the generated plots with show(). This method is called separately to allow you to show a number of plots simultaneously.

Responses

Solution.plot_responses(figure=None, group=None, groups=None, source=None, sources=None, sink=None, sinks=None, xlabel=None, ylabel_mag=None, ylabel_phase=None, scale_db=True, **kwargs)[source]

Plot responses.

Note: if only one of “sources” or “sinks” is specified, the other defaults to “all” as per the behaviour of filter_responses().

Parameters

  • figure (Figure, optional) – Figure to plot to. If not specified, a new figure is created.

  • group, groups (str or list of str, optional) – The response group(s) to plot. If None, the default group is assumed.

  • source, sources, sink, sinks (str or list of str, Component) – or Node The source(s) and sink(s) to plot responses between. If None, all matched sources and sinks are plotted.

  • xlabel, ylabel_mag, ylabel_phase (str, optional) – The x- and y-axis labels for the magnitude and phase plots.

  • scale_db (bool, optional) – Scale the magnitude y-axis values in decibels. If False, absolute scaling is used.

Other Parameters

  • legend (bool, optional) – Display legend.

  • legend_loc (str, optional) – Legend display location. Defaults to “best”.

  • legend_groups (bool, optional) – Display function group names in legends, if the group is not the default.

  • title (str, optional) – The plot title.

  • xlim, mag_ylim, phase_ylim (sequence of float, optional) – The lower and upper limits for the x- and y-axes for the magnitude and phase plots.

  • db_tick_major_step, db_tick_minor_step (float, optional) – The magnitude y axis tick step sizes when scale_db is enabled. Defaults to 20 and 10 for the major and minor steps, respectively.

  • phase_tick_major_step, phase_tick_minor_step (float, optional) – The phase y axis tick step sizes when scale_db is enabled. Defaults to 30 and 15 for the major and minor steps, respectively.

Returns

BasePlotter – The plotter object.

Noise spectral densities

Solution.plot_noise(figure=None, group=None, groups=None, source=None, sources=None, sink=None, sinks=None, type=None, types=None, show_individual=True, show_sums=True, xlabel=None, ylabel=None, **kwargs)[source]

Plot noise.

Note: if only some of “groups”, “sources”, “sinks”, “types” are specified, the others default to “all” as per the behaviour of filter_noise().

Parameters

  • figure (Figure, optional) – Figure to plot to. If not specified, a new figure is created.

  • group, groups (str or list of str, optional) – The noise group(s) to plot. If None, the default group is assumed.

  • source, sources (str or list of str or Noise, optional) – The noise source(s) to plot at the specified sinks. If None, all matched sources are plotted.

  • sink, sinks (str or list of str, Component or Node, optional) – The sink(s) to plot noise at. If None, all matched sinks are plotted.

  • type, types (str or list of str, optional) – The noise type(s) to plot. If None, all matched noise types are plotted.

  • show_individual (bool, optional) – Plot any individual noise spectra contained in this solution.

  • show_sums (bool, optional) – Plot any sums contained in this solution.

  • xlabel, ylabel (str, optional) – The x- and y-axis labels.

Other Parameters

  • legend (bool, optional) – Display legend.

  • legend_loc (str, optional) – Legend display location. Defaults to “best”.

  • legend_groups (bool, optional) – Display function group names in legends, if the group is not the default.

  • title (str, optional) – The plot title.

  • xlim, ylim (sequence of float, optional) – The lower and upper limits for the x- and y-axes.

Returns

BasePlotter – The plotter object.

Further modifying plots generated by Zero

If you wish to apply further styling to a plot generated by Zero, you can do so using Matplotlib method calls on the figure property of the plotter object.

You can also set the Solution’s response_plotter and noise_plotter attributes to custom BaseGroupPlotter implementations to provide full control over plotting capabilities.

Plotting from the command line

The LISO compatibility command line interface provides some options for controlling the display of plots and for saving copies to the file system. See LISO tools in the CLI section for more information.