Equal area projection

Hi all,

I've recently implemented a simple equal area (Lambert) projection in
mpl, using two polar Axes (to draw each hemisphere), and this
currently works fine to draw lines and points, since I'm transforming
the points in my own code, from 3d-polar to 2d-projected-polar
co-ordinates, and then plotting those.

Now I have a need to also be able to draw coloured intensity maps on
the Axes using the same transform, and I'm wondering what the best way
to go about this would be. When I started the first implementation, I
looked at basemap and its transforms, but they didn't seem to do what
I wanted any more easily than just implementing it myself. I'm also
vaguely aware of some transformation capabilities (that are relatively
new?) in mpl itself, but I'm not sure whether they're useful to me for
polar co-ordinate systems and plot contents, rather than plot
decorations. Ideally, the transform would apply to the interpolation
too, but I think it would be sufficient to linearly interpolate
between the points: I can simply provide them at high enough density
to minimize the discrepancy.

Any suggestions on the best way to do this would be gratefully received.

Thanks,

Angus.

···

--
AJC McMorland
Post-doctoral research fellow
Neurobiology, University of Pittsburgh

Angus McMorland wrote:

Hi all,

I've recently implemented a simple equal area (Lambert) projection in
mpl, using two polar Axes (to draw each hemisphere), and this
currently works fine to draw lines and points, since I'm transforming
the points in my own code, from 3d-polar to 2d-projected-polar
co-ordinates, and then plotting those.

Now I have a need to also be able to draw coloured intensity maps on
the Axes using the same transform, and I'm wondering what the best way
to go about this would be. When I started the first implementation, I
looked at basemap and its transforms, but they didn't seem to do what
I wanted any more easily than just implementing it myself.

Angus: I'm curious about how you came to this conclusion. It seems like this should be trivial in Basemap, in fact it's exactly what I designed it for.

If you send me a sample of your data, I can give you a simple script to plot it with Basemap.

-Jeff

···

I'm also
vaguely aware of some transformation capabilities (that are relatively
new?) in mpl itself, but I'm not sure whether they're useful to me for
polar co-ordinate systems and plot contents, rather than plot
decorations. Ideally, the transform would apply to the interpolation
too, but I think it would be sufficient to linearly interpolate
between the points: I can simply provide them at high enough density
to minimize the discrepancy.

Any suggestions on the best way to do this would be gratefully received.

Thanks,

Angus.
  
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