Multi-plot Help
Authors:
Karen Collins and John Kielkopf of the University of Louisville. AstroImageJ is
open source software and is distributed under the terms of the GNU General
Public License. Report problems to karen_dot_collins_at_insightbb_dot_com.
AstroImageJ is based on ImageJ and other open source software packages.
Multi-plot is a plotting module for AstroImageJ that provides an interface for plotting one or more datasets on a single plot. Multi-plot supports the following capabilities:
- a single row of controls corresponding to each plotted dataset in the Multi-plot Y-data window (or two rows for narrow screens)
- data scaling and shifting per dataset
- absolute plotting that corresponds to the Y-axis scale
- page relative plotting that is arbitrarily scaled to fit on a specified portion of the plot (i.e. not corresponding to the Y-axis scale)
- binning support per dataset
- error-bar plotting per dataset
- operations on one dataset by another (divide, multiply, add, subtract, centroid distance)
- head and tail data trimming
- X- and Y-axis auto-scaling and manual scaling
- interactive selection/deletion of erroneous data using shift-left-click with the mouse pointer in plot window
- interactive zoom of plot using mouse scroll wheel or left click, pan by left-click and drag
- plot updates automatically when new data are added to the data table
- plotting in relative magnitude, with a user definable number of initial data points to be averaged as the reference level
- magnitude can be plotted as usual, or negated to match the sense of data not plotted in magnitude
- input data can be in relative flux or magnitude
- two vertical markers for identifying X-axis events
- detrending of y-data based on any number of trend data columns in the measurements table
- up to four detrending region selection markers
- meridian flip detrending can be combined with detrending based on trend data
- plot with Y-axis in standard or inverted orientation
- change stars in comparison star set without re-running photometry on images
- save and recall plot settings
- drag and drop new datasets and/or plot configurations onto Multi-plot windows
- data format support includes AstroImageJ data tables and standard tab, comma, or space delimited files
- merge two data files by adding new rows or new columns
- save subsets of data columns for use with other tools
- save plots in any ImageJ supported file format
While you are
learning to use Multi-plot, make sure “Show tooltips help” is enabled under the
Multi-plot Main panel’s ‘Preferences’ menu. Most all elements of the display
will show help information after moving the mouse over a GUI element for about
a second.
Use the
“Multi-plot Main” window to set plotting properties that pertain to the overall
plot and all Y-datasets. A default X-axis dataset can be defined for Y-data
that does not require a special/different X-axis dataset. The plot title,
subtitle, X-axis label, Y-axis label, and legend properties are set on the main
panel, as well as X- and Y-axis data scaling that is applied to all plotted
data. In addition, the plot size and various plot format options, the number of
relative magnitude reference samples, and the vertical markers, detrending
markers, and meridian flip marker can be set up on the main panel.
The
Multi-plot Y-data panel provides individual control over each dataset that is
plotted. Data is processed in the order of the functions from left to right in
the Y-data panel. Each row contains controls for a particular dataset including
additional scaling and shifting options on a per dataset basis. The preferences
menu in the main window allows the user to select a two-line format for
non-widescreen monitors, and the “Number of Y-datasets” option on the main
panel sets the number of Y-data rows to display.
When “Page Rel” is not
selected on a row, the “Y-data” specified on the row are multiplied by the
“Multi-plot Main” panel “Y-axis” factor of 10 multiplier,
and are then multiplied by “Scale” and then shifted by “Shift” before plotting
to scale on the Y-axis. When “Page Rel” is selected
on a particular row, the corresponding data is arbitrarily scaled to fit within
a specified fraction of the plot area, regardless of the Y-axis scale. In “Page
Rel” mode, “Scale” and “Shift” values represent a
percentage of the plot and the plotted values do not correspond directly to the
Y-axis scale. However, if the “Append scaling factor to legend for relative
curves” and “Append shift factor to legend for relative curves” options are
selected by clicking the tool icon next to the “Legend Type” label, the
correlation between the plotted data and the Y-axis scale can be recovered.