Question

Trying to plot a spectrum, ie, velocity versus intensity, with lower x axis = velocity, on the upper twin axis = frequency

The relationship between them (doppler formula) is

f = (1-v/c)*f_0 

where f is the resulting frequency, v the velocity, c the speed of light, and f_0 the frequency at v=0, ie. the v_lsr.

I have tried to solve it by looking at http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/examples/axes_grid/parasite_simple2.html , where it is solved by

pm_to_kms = 1./206265.*2300*3.085e18/3.15e7/1.e5
aux_trans = matplotlib.transforms.Affine2D().scale(pm_to_kms, 1.)
ax_pm = ax_kms.twin(aux_trans)
ax_pm.set_viewlim_mode("transform")

my problem is, how do I replace the pm_to_kms with my function for frequency?

Anyone know how to solve this?

Answer 1

The solution I ended up using was:

ax_hz = ax_kms.twiny()
x_1, x_2 = ax_kms.get_xlim()
# i want the frequency in GHz so, divide by 1e9
ax_hz.set_xlim(calc_frequency(x_1,data.restfreq/1e9),calc_frequency(x_2,data.restfreq/1e9))

This works perfect, and much less complicated solution.

EDIT : Found a very fancy answer.
EDIT2 : Changed the transform call according to the comment by @u55

This basically involves defining our own conversion/transform. Because of the excellent AstroPy Units equivalencies, it becomes even easier to understand and more illustrative.

from matplotlib import transforms as mtransforms
import astropy.constants as co
import astropy.units as un
import numpy as np 
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt 
plt.style.use('ggplot')
from mpl_toolkits.axes_grid.parasite_axes import SubplotHost 


class Freq2WavelengthTransform(mtransforms.Transform): 
    input_dims = 1 
    output_dims = 1 
    is_separable = False 
    has_inverse = True 

    def __init__(self):
        mtransforms.Transform.__init__(self)

    def transform_non_affine(self, fr): 
        return (fr*un.GHz).to(un.mm, equivalencies=un.spectral()).value 

    def inverted(self): 
        return Wavelength2FreqTransform() 

class Wavelength2FreqTransform(Freq2WavelengthTransform): 
    input_dims = 1 
    output_dims = 1 
    is_separable = False 
    has_inverse = True 

    def __init__(self):
        mtransforms.Transform.__init__(self)

    def transform_non_affine(self, wl): 
        return (wl*un.mm).to(un.GHz, equivalencies=un.spectral()).value 

    def inverted(self): 
        return Freq2WavelengthTransform() 



aux_trans = mtransforms.BlendedGenericTransform(Wavelength2FreqTransform(), mtransforms.IdentityTransform()) 

fig = plt.figure(2) 

ax_GHz = SubplotHost(fig, 1,1,1) 
fig.add_subplot(ax_GHz) 
ax_GHz.set_xlabel("Frequency (GHz)") 


xvals = np.arange(199.9, 999.9, 0.1) 

# data, noise + Gaussian (spectral) lines
data = np.random.randn(len(xvals))*0.01 + np.exp(-(xvals-300.)**2/100.)*0.5 + np.exp(-(xvals-600.)**2/400.)*0.5

ax_mm = ax_GHz.twin(aux_trans) 
ax_mm.set_xlabel('Wavelength (mm)') 
ax_mm.set_viewlim_mode("transform") 
ax_mm.axis["right"].toggle(ticklabels=False) 

ax_GHz.plot(xvals, data) 
ax_GHz.set_xlim(200, 1000) 

plt.draw() 
plt.show() 

This now produces the desired results: