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Why is find_peaks() not working correctly for determining highest peaks of a waveform?

I am trying to replicate the MATLAB function findpeaks() in Python using find_peaks() from scipy.signal.
Basically I'm trying to translate the MATLAB example for Finding Periodicity Using Autocorrelation into Python.
I've written the following Python code for the same.
Everything seems to be working fine, except for the last part where the indices of the 'long period', i.e. those of the highest peaks, aren't being determined correctly.
#Loading Libraries
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
import pickle
import scipy
from scipy.signal import find_peaks, square
import scipy.signal as signal
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import math
#Loading Dataset from a local copy of the dataset (from the MATLAB link I've shared)
dataset = pd.read_csv('officetemp_matlab_dataset.csv')
#Preprocessing
temp = dataset.to_numpy()
tempC = (temp-32)*5/9
tempnorm = tempC-np.mean(tempC)
fs = 2*24
t = [(i-1)/fs for i in range(len(tempnorm))]
#Plotting the waveform
plt.plot(t, tempnorm)
#Determining Autocorrelation & Lags
autocorr = signal.correlate(tempnorm, tempnorm, mode='same')
lags = signal.correlation_lags(len(tempnorm), len(tempnorm), mode="same")
#Plotting the Autocorrelation & Lags
f = plt.figure()
f.set_figwidth(40)
f.set_figheight(10)
plt.plot(lags/fs, autocorr)
#A) FINDING ALL PEAKS
#1) Finding peak indices
indices = find_peaks(autocorr.flatten())[0]
#2) Finding peak values
peak_values_short = [autocorr.flatten()[j] for j in indices]
#3) Finding corresponding lags of the peak values
peak_values_lags_short = [lags.flatten()[j] for j in indices]
#4) Determining Period (short)
diff = [(indices[i - 1] - x) for i, x in enumerate(indices)][1:]
short_period = abs(np.mean(diff))/fs
short_period
#B) FINDING THE HIGHEST PEAKS (of 2nd period)
#1) Finding peak indices
indices = find_peaks(autocorr.flatten(), height = 0.3, distance = math.ceil(short_period)*fs)[0]
#2) Finding peak values
peak_values_long = [autocorr.flatten()[j] for j in indices]
#3) Finding corresponding lags of the peak values
peak_values_lags_long = [lags.flatten()[j] for j in indices]
#4) Determining Period (long)
diff = [(indices[i - 1] - x) for i, x in enumerate(indices)][1:]
long_period = abs(np.mean(diff))/fs
long_period
###DOING A SCATTER PLOT OF THE PEAK POINTS OVERLAPPING ON THE PREVIOUS PLOT OF AUTOCORR VS LAGS
f = plt.figure()
f.set_figwidth(40)
f.set_figheight(10)
plt.plot(lags/fs, autocorr)
shrt = [i/fs for i in peak_values_lags_short]
lng = [i/fs for i in peak_values_lags_long]
plt.scatter(shrt, peak_values_short, marker='o')
plt.scatter(lng, peak_values_long, marker='*')
As you can see, there are 2 things which are going wrong in my Python output when compared to the MATLAB example:
The 'long time period' value (and their indices values) obtained is different
The autocorr and lag's values for the 'long time period' peak locations are different (as seen in the last plot):
I can't figure out why find_peaks() is working fine the 1st time (when all peaks are determined) but fails to give the correct results the 2nd time when more arguments are provided to find the highest peaks.
How can I detect the highest peaks of the 2nd period correctly?

I'm answering my own question.
I realized that the only mistake I was doing in my Python code was not normalizing the autocorr values as was done in the Matlab example. I simply added the following in my code:
autocorr = (autocorr-min(autocorr))/(max(autocorr)-min(autocorr))
When I do so, I eventually get the desired results, same as that in the example:
Hence, to conclude, find_peaks() does in fact do the intended job.

How can I cut a piece away from a plot and set the point I need to zero?

In my work I have the task to read in a CSV file and do calculations with it. The CSV file consists of 9 different columns and about 150 lines with different values acquired from sensors. First the horizontal acceleration was determined, from which the distance was derived by double integration. This represents the lower plot of the two plots in the picture. The upper plot represents the so-called force data. The orange graph shows the plot over the 9th column of the CSV file and the blue graph shows the plot over the 7th column of the CSV file.
As you can see I have drawn two vertical lines in the lower plot in the picture. These lines represent the x-value, which in the upper plot is the global minimum of the orange function and the intersection with the blue function. Now I want to do the following, but I need some help: While I want the intersection point between the first vertical line and the graph to be (0,0), i.e. the function has to be moved down. How do I achieve this? Furthermore, the piece of the function before this first intersection point (shown in purple) should be omitted, so that the function really only starts at this point. How can I do this?
In the following picture I try to demonstrate how I would like to do that:
If you need my code, here you can see it:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import math as m
import loaddataa as ld
import scipy.integrate as inte
from scipy.signal import find_peaks
import pandas as pd
import os
# Loading of the values
print(os.path.realpath(__file__))
a,b = os.path.split(os.path.realpath(__file__))
print(os.chdir(a))
print(os.chdir('..'))
print(os.chdir('..'))
path=os.getcwd()
path=path+"\\Data\\1 Fabienne\\Test1\\left foot\\50cm"
print(path)
dataListStride = ld.loadData(path)
indexStrideData = 0
strideData = dataListStride[indexStrideData]
#%%Calculation of the horizontal acceleration
def horizontal(yAngle, yAcceleration, xAcceleration):
a = ((m.cos(m.radians(yAngle)))*yAcceleration)-((m.sin(m.radians(yAngle)))*xAcceleration)
return a
resultsHorizontal = list()
for i in range (len(strideData)):
strideData_yAngle = strideData.to_numpy()[i, 2]
strideData_xAcceleration = strideData.to_numpy()[i, 4]
strideData_yAcceleration = strideData.to_numpy()[i, 5]
resultsHorizontal.append(horizontal(strideData_yAngle, strideData_yAcceleration, strideData_xAcceleration))
resultsHorizontal.insert(0, 0)
#plt.plot(x_values, resultsHorizontal)
#%%
#x-axis "convert" into time: 100 Hertz makes 0.01 seconds
scale_factor = 0.01
x_values = np.arange(len(resultsHorizontal)) * scale_factor
#Calculation of the global high and low points
heel_one=pd.Series(strideData.iloc[:,7])
plt.scatter(heel_one.idxmax()*scale_factor,heel_one.max(), color='red')
plt.scatter(heel_one.idxmin()*scale_factor,heel_one.min(), color='blue')
heel_two=pd.Series(strideData.iloc[:,9])
plt.scatter(heel_two.idxmax()*scale_factor,heel_two.max(), color='orange')
plt.scatter(heel_two.idxmin()*scale_factor,heel_two.min(), color='green')#!
#Plot of force data
plt.plot(x_values[:-1],strideData.iloc[:,7]) #force heel
plt.plot(x_values[:-1],strideData.iloc[:,9]) #force toe
# while - loop to calculate the point of intersection with the blue function
i = heel_one.idxmax()
while strideData.iloc[i,7] > strideData.iloc[i,9]:
i = i-1
# Length calculation between global minimum orange function and intersection with blue function
laenge=(i-heel_two.idxmin())*scale_factor
print(laenge)
#%% Integration of horizontal acceleration
velocity = inte.cumtrapz(resultsHorizontal,x_values)
plt.plot(x_values[:-1], velocity)
#%% Integration of the velocity
s = inte.cumtrapz(velocity, x_values[:-1])
plt.plot(x_values[:-2],s)
I hope it's clear what I want to do. Thanks for helping me!

I didn't dig all the way through your code, but the following tricks may be useful.
Say you have x and y values:
x = np.linspace(0,3,100)
y = x**2
Now, you only want the values corresponding to, say, .5 < x < 1.5. First, create a boolean mask for the arrays as follows:
mask = np.logical_and(.5 < x, x < 1.5)
(If this seems magical, then run x < 1.5 in your interpreter and observe the results).
Then use this mask to select your desired x and y values:
x_masked = x[mask]
y_masked = y[mask]
Then, you can translate all these values so that the first x,y pair is at the origin:
x_translated = x_masked - x_masked[0]
y_translated = y_masked - y_masked[0]
Is this the type of thing you were looking for?

time-series segmentation in python

I am trying to segment the time-series data as shown in the figure. I have lots of data from the sensors, any of these data can have different number of isolated peaks region. In this figure, I have 3 of those. I would like to have a function that takes the time-series as the input and returns the segmented sections of equal length.
My initial thought was to have a sliding window that calculates the relative change in the amplitude. Since the window with the peaks will have relatively higher changes, I could just define certain threshold for the relative change that would help me take the window with isolated peaks. However, this will create problem when choosing the threshold as the relative change is very sensitive to the noises in the data.
Any suggestions?

To do this you need to find signal out of noise.
get mean value of you signal and add some multiplayer that place borders on top and on bottom of noise - green dashed line
find peak values below bottom of noise -> array 2 groups of data
find peak values on top of noise -> array 2 groups of data
get min index of bottom first peak and max index of top of first peak to find first peak range
get min index of top second peak and max index of bottom of second peak to find second peak range
Some description in code. With this method you can find other peaks.
One thing that you need to input by hand is to tell program thex value between peaks for splitting data into parts.
See graphic for summary.
import numpy as np
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
# create noise data
def function(x, noise):
y = np.sin(7*x+2) + noise
return y
def function2(x, noise):
y = np.sin(6*x+2) + noise
return y
noise = np.random.uniform(low=-0.3, high=0.3, size=(100,))
x_line0 = np.linspace(1.95,2.85,100)
y_line0 = function(x_line0, noise)
x_line = np.linspace(0, 1.95, 100)
x_line2 = np.linspace(2.85, 3.95, 100)
x_pik = np.linspace(3.95, 5, 100)
y_pik = function2(x_pik, noise)
x_line3 = np.linspace(5, 6, 100)
# concatenate noise data
x = np.linspace(0, 6, 500)
y = np.concatenate((noise, y_line0, noise, y_pik, noise), axis=0)
# plot data
noise_band = 1.1
top_noise = y.mean()+noise_band*np.amax(noise)
bottom_noise = y.mean()-noise_band*np.amax(noise)
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.axhline(y=y.mean(), color='red', linestyle='--')
ax.axhline(y=top_noise, linestyle='--', color='green')
ax.axhline(y=bottom_noise, linestyle='--', color='green')
ax.plot(x, y)
# split data into 2 signals
def split(arr, cond):
return [arr[cond], arr[~cond]]
# find bottom noise data indexes
botom_data_indexes = np.argwhere(y < bottom_noise)
# split by visual x value
splitted_bottom_data = split(botom_data_indexes, botom_data_indexes < np.argmax(x > 3))
# find top noise data indexes
top_data_indexes = np.argwhere(y > top_noise)
# split by visual x value
splitted_top_data = split(top_data_indexes, top_data_indexes < np.argmax(x > 3))
# get first signal range
first_signal_start = np.amin(splitted_bottom_data[0])
first_signal_end = np.amax(splitted_top_data[0])
# get x index of first signal
x_first_signal = np.take(x, [first_signal_start, first_signal_end])
ax.axvline(x=x_first_signal[0], color='orange')
ax.axvline(x=x_first_signal[1], color='orange')
# get second signal range
second_signal_start = np.amin(splitted_top_data[1])
second_signal_end = np.amax(splitted_bottom_data[1])
# get x index of first signal
x_second_signal = np.take(x, [second_signal_start, second_signal_end])
ax.axvline(x=x_second_signal[0], color='orange')
ax.axvline(x=x_second_signal[1], color='orange')
plt.show()
Output:
red line = mean value of all data
green line - top and bottom noise borders
orange line - selected peak data

1, It depends on how you want to define a "region", but looks like you just have feeling instead of strict definition. If you have a very clear definition of what kind of piece you want to cut out, you can try some method like "matched filter"
2, You might want to detect the peak of absolute magnitude. If not working, try peak of absolute magnitude of first-order difference, even 2nd-order.
3, it is hard to work on the noisy data like this. My suggestion is to do filtering before you pick up sections (on unfiltered data). Filtering will give you smooth peaks so that the position of peaks can be detected by the change of derivative sign. For filtering, try just "low-pass filter" first. If it doesn't work, I also suggest "Hilbert–Huang transform".
*, Looks like you are using matlab. The methods mentioned are all included in matlab.

Counterclockwise sorting of x, y data

I have a set of points in a text file: random_shape.dat.
The initial order of points in the file is random. I would like to sort these points in a counter-clockwise order as follows (the red dots are the xy data):
I tried to achieve that by using the polar coordinates: I calculate the polar angle of each point (x,y) then sort by the ascending angles, as follows:
"""
Script: format_file.py
Description: This script will format the xy data file accordingly to be used with a program expecting CCW order of data points, By soting the points in Counterclockwise order
Example: python format_file.py random_shape.dat
"""
import sys
import numpy as np
# Read the file name
filename = sys.argv[1]
# Get the header name from the first line of the file (without the newline character)
with open(filename, 'r') as f:
header = f.readline().rstrip('\n')
angles = []
# Read the data from the file
x, y = np.loadtxt(filename, skiprows=1, unpack=True)
for xi, yi in zip(x, y):
angle = np.arctan2(yi, xi)
if angle < 0:
angle += 2*np.pi # map the angle to 0,2pi interval
angles.append(angle)
# create a numpy array
angles = np.array(angles)
# Get the arguments of sorted 'angles' array
angles_argsort = np.argsort(angles)
# Sort x and y
new_x = x[angles_argsort]
new_y = y[angles_argsort]
print("Length of new x:", len(new_x))
print("Length of new y:", len(new_y))
with open(filename.split('.')[0] + '_formatted.dat', 'w') as f:
print(header, file=f)
for xi, yi in zip(new_x, new_y):
print(xi, yi, file=f)
print("Done!")
By running the script:
python format_file.py random_shape.dat
Unfortunately I don't get the expected results in random_shape_formated.dat! The points are not sorted in the desired order.
Any help is appreciated.
EDIT: The expected resutls:
Create a new file named: filename_formatted.dat that contains the sorted data according to the image above (The first line contains the starting point, the next lines contain the points as shown by the blue arrows in counterclockwise direction in the image).
EDIT 2: The xy data added here instead of using github gist:
random_shape
0.4919261070361315 0.0861956168831175
0.4860816807027076 -0.06601587301587264
0.5023029456281289 -0.18238249845392662
0.5194784026079869 0.24347943722943777
0.5395164357511545 -0.3140611471861465
0.5570497147514262 0.36010146103896146
0.6074231036252226 -0.4142604617604615
0.6397066014669927 0.48590810704447085
0.7048302091822873 -0.5173701298701294
0.7499157837544145 0.5698170011806378
0.8000108666123336 -0.6199254449254443
0.8601249660418364 0.6500974025974031
0.9002010323281716 -0.7196585989767801
0.9703341483292582 0.7299242424242429
1.0104102146155935 -0.7931355765446666
1.0805433306166803 0.8102046438410078
1.1206193969030154 -0.865251869342778
1.1907525129041021 0.8909386068476981
1.2308285791904374 -0.9360074773711129
1.300961695191524 0.971219008264463
1.3410377614778592 -1.0076702085792988
1.4111708774789458 1.051499409681228
1.451246943765281 -1.0788793781975592
1.5213800597663678 1.1317798110979933
1.561456126052703 -1.1509956709956706
1.6315892420537896 1.2120602125147582
1.671665308340125 -1.221751279024005
1.7417984243412115 1.2923406139315234
1.7818744906275468 -1.2943211334120424
1.8520076066286335 1.3726210153482883
1.8920836729149686 -1.3596340023612745
1.9622167889160553 1.4533549783549786
2.0022928552023904 -1.4086186540731989
2.072425971203477 1.5331818181818184
2.1125020374898122 -1.451707005116095
2.182635153490899 1.6134622195985833
2.2227112197772345 -1.4884454939000387
2.292844335778321 1.6937426210153486
2.3329204020646563 -1.5192876820149541
2.403053518065743 1.774476584022039
2.443129584352078 -1.5433264462809912
2.513262700353165 1.8547569854388037
2.5533387666395 -1.561015348288075
2.6234718826405867 1.9345838252656438
2.663547948926922 -1.5719008264462806
2.7336810649280086 1.9858362849271942
2.7737571312143436 -1.5750757575757568
2.8438902472154304 2.009421487603306
2.883966313501766 -1.5687258953168035
2.954099429502852 2.023481896890988
2.9941754957891877 -1.5564797323888229
3.0643086117902745 2.0243890200708385
3.1043846780766096 -1.536523022432113
3.1745177940776963 2.0085143644234558
3.2145938603640314 -1.5088557654466737
3.284726976365118 1.9749508067689887
3.324803042651453 -1.472570838252656
3.39493615865254 1.919162731208186
3.435012224938875 -1.4285753640299088
3.5051453409399618 1.8343467138921687
3.545221407226297 -1.3786835891381335
3.6053355066557997 1.7260966810966811
3.655430589513719 -1.3197205824478546
3.6854876392284703 1.6130086580086582
3.765639771801141 -1.2544077134986225
3.750611246943765 1.5024152236652237
3.805715838087476 1.3785173160173163
3.850244800627849 1.2787337662337666
3.875848954088563 -1.1827449822904361
3.919007794704616 1.1336638361638363
3.9860581363759846 -1.1074537583628485
3.9860581363759846 1.0004485329485333
4.058012891753723 0.876878197560016
4.096267318663407 -1.0303482880755608
4.15638141809291 0.7443374218374221
4.206476500950829 -0.9514285714285711
4.256571583808748 0.6491902794175526
4.3166856832382505 -0.8738695395513574
4.36678076609617 0.593855765446675
4.426894865525672 -0.7981247540338443
4.476989948383592 0.5802489177489183
4.537104047813094 -0.72918339236521
4.587199130671014 0.5902272727272733
4.647313230100516 -0.667045454545454
4.697408312958435 0.6246979535615904
4.757522412387939 -0.6148858717040526
4.807617495245857 0.6754968516332154
4.8677315946753605 -0.5754260133805582
4.917826677533279 0.7163173947264858
4.977940776962782 -0.5500265643447455
5.028035859820701 0.7448917748917752
5.088149959250204 -0.5373268398268394
5.138245042108123 0.7702912239275879
5.198359141537626 -0.5445838252656432
5.2484542243955445 0.7897943722943728
5.308568323825048 -0.5618191656828015
5.358663406682967 0.8052154663518301
5.41877750611247 -0.5844972451790631
5.468872588970389 0.8156473829201105
5.5289866883998915 -0.6067217630853987
5.579081771257811 0.8197294372294377
5.639195870687313 -0.6248642266824076
5.689290953545233 0.8197294372294377
5.749405052974735 -0.6398317591499403
5.799500135832655 0.8142866981503349
5.859614235262157 -0.6493565525383702
5.909709318120076 0.8006798504525783
5.969823417549579 -0.6570670995670991
6.019918500407498 0.7811767020857934
6.080032599837001 -0.6570670995670991
6.13012768269492 0.7562308146399057
6.190241782124423 -0.653438606847697
6.240336864982342 0.7217601338055886
6.300450964411845 -0.6420995670995664
6.350546047269764 0.6777646595828419
6.410660146699267 -0.6225964187327819
6.4607552295571855 0.6242443919716649
6.520869328986689 -0.5922077922077915
6.570964411844607 0.5548494687131056
6.631078511274111 -0.5495730027548205
6.681173594132029 0.4686727666273125
6.7412876935615325 -0.4860743801652889
6.781363759847868 0.3679316979316982
6.84147785927737 -0.39541245791245716
6.861515892420538 0.25880333951762546
6.926639500135833 -0.28237987012986965
6.917336127605076 0.14262677798392165
6.946677533279001 0.05098957832291173
6.967431210462995 -0.13605442176870675
6.965045730326905 -0.03674603174603108

I find that an easy way to sort points with x,y-coordinates like that is to sort them dependent on the angle between the line from the points and the center of mass of the whole polygon and the horizontal line which is called alpha in the example. The coordinates of the center of mass (x0 and y0) can easily be calculated by averaging the x,y coordinates of all points. Then you calculate the angle using numpy.arccos for instance. When y-y0 is larger than 0 you take the angle directly, otherwise you subtract the angle from 360° (2𝜋). I have used numpy.where for the calculation of the angle and then numpy.argsort to produce a mask for indexing the initial x,y-values. The following function sort_xy sorts all x and y coordinates with respect to this angle. If you want to start from any other point you could add an offset angle for that. In your case that would be zero though.
def sort_xy(x, y):
x0 = np.mean(x)
y0 = np.mean(y)
r = np.sqrt((x-x0)**2 + (y-y0)**2)
angles = np.where((y-y0) > 0, np.arccos((x-x0)/r), 2*np.pi-np.arccos((x-x0)/r))
mask = np.argsort(angles)
x_sorted = x[mask]
y_sorted = y[mask]
return x_sorted, y_sorted
Plotting x, y before sorting using matplotlib.pyplot.plot (points are obvisously not sorted):
Plotting x, y using matplotlib.pyplot.plot after sorting with this method:

If it is certain that the curve does not cross the same X coordinate (i.e. any vertical line) more than twice, then you could visit the points in X-sorted order and append a point to one of two tracks you follow: to the one whose last end point is the closest to the new one. One of these tracks will represent the "upper" part of the curve, and the other, the "lower" one.
The logic would be as follows:
dist2 = lambda a,b: (a[0]-b[0])*(a[0]-b[0]) + (a[1]-b[1])*(a[1]-b[1])
z = list(zip(x, y)) # get the list of coordinate pairs
z.sort() # sort by x coordinate
cw = z[0:1] # first point in clockwise direction
ccw = z[1:2] # first point in counter clockwise direction
# reverse the above assignment depending on how first 2 points relate
if z[1][1] > z[0][1]:
cw = z[1:2]
ccw = z[0:1]
for p in z[2:]:
# append to the list to which the next point is closest
if dist2(cw[-1], p) < dist2(ccw[-1], p):
cw.append(p)
else:
ccw.append(p)
cw.reverse()
result = cw + ccw
This would also work for a curve with steep fluctuations in the Y-coordinate, for which an angle-look-around from some central point would fail, like here:
No assumption is made about the range of the X nor of the Y coordinate: like for instance, the curve does not necessarily have to cross the X axis (Y = 0) for this to work.

Counter-clock-wise order depends on the choice of a pivot point. From your question, one good choice of the pivot point is the center of mass.
Something like this:
# Find the Center of Mass: data is a numpy array of shape (Npoints, 2)
mean = np.mean(data, axis=0)
# Compute angles
angles = np.arctan2((data-mean)[:, 1], (data-mean)[:, 0])
# Transform angles from [-pi,pi] -> [0, 2*pi]
angles[angles < 0] = angles[angles < 0] + 2 * np.pi
# Sort
sorting_indices = np.argsort(angles)
sorted_data = data[sorting_indices]

Not really a python question I think, but still I think you could try sorting by - sign(y) * x doing something like:
def counter_clockwise_sort(points):
return sorted(points, key=lambda point: point['x'] * (-1 if point['y'] >= 0 else 1))
should work fine, assuming you read your points properly into a list of dicts of format {'x': 0.12312, 'y': 0.912}
EDIT: This will work as long as you cross the X axis only twice, like in your example.

If:
the shape is arbitrarily complex and
the point spacing is ~random
then I think this is a really hard problem.
For what it's worth, I have faced a similar problem in the past, and I used a traveling salesman solver. In particular, I used the LKH solver. I see there is a Python repo for solving the problem, LKH-TSP. Once you have an order to the points, I don't think it will be too hard to decide on a clockwise vs clockwise ordering.

If we want to answer your specific problem, we need to pick a pivot point.
Since you want to sort according to the starting point you picked, I would take a pivot in the middle (x=4,y=0 will do).
Since we're sorting counterclockwise, we'll take arctan2(-(y-pivot_y),-(x-center_x)) (we're flipping the x axis).
We get the following, with a gradient colored scatter to prove correctness (fyi I removed the first line of the dat file after downloading):
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
points = np.loadtxt('points.dat')
#oneliner for ordering points (transform, adjust for 0 to 2pi, argsort, index at points)
ordered_points = points[np.argsort(np.apply_along_axis(lambda x: np.arctan2(-x[1],-x[0]+4) + np.pi*2, axis=1,arr=points)),:]
#color coding 0-1 as str for gray colormap in matplotlib
plt.scatter(ordered_points[:,0], ordered_points[:,1],c=[str(x) for x in np.arange(len(ordered_points)) / len(ordered_points)],cmap='gray')
Result (in the colormap 1 is white and 0 is black), they're numbered in the 0-1 range by order:

For points with comparable distances between their neighbouring pts, we can use KDTree to get two closest pts for each pt. Then draw lines connecting those to give us a closed shape contour. Then, we will make use of OpenCV's findContours to get contour traced always in counter-clockwise manner. Now, since OpenCV works on images, we need to sample data from the provided float format to uint8 image format. Given, comparable distances between two pts, that should be pretty safe. Also, OpenCV handles it well to make sure it traces even sharp corners in curvatures, i.e. smooth or not-smooth data would work just fine. And, there's no pivot requirement, etc. As such all kinds of shapes would be good to work with.
Here'e the implementation -
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from scipy.spatial.distance import pdist
from scipy.spatial import cKDTree
import cv2
from scipy.ndimage.morphology import binary_fill_holes
def counter_clockwise_order(a, DEBUG_PLOT=False):
b = a-a.min(0)
d = pdist(b).min()
c = np.round(2*b/d).astype(int)
img = np.zeros(c.max(0)[::-1]+1, dtype=np.uint8)
d1,d2 = cKDTree(c).query(c,k=3)
b = c[d2]
p1,p2,p3 = b[:,0],b[:,1],b[:,2]
for i in range(len(b)):
cv2.line(img,tuple(p1[i]),tuple(p2[i]),255,1)
cv2.line(img,tuple(p1[i]),tuple(p3[i]),255,1)
img = (binary_fill_holes(img==255)*255).astype(np.uint8)
if int(cv2.__version__.split('.')[0])>=3:
_,contours,hierarchy = cv2.findContours(img.copy(),cv2.RETR_TREE,cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_NONE)
else:
contours,hierarchy = cv2.findContours(img.copy(),cv2.RETR_TREE,cv2.CHAIN_APPROX_NONE)
cont = contours[0][:,0]
f1,f2 = cKDTree(cont).query(c,k=1)
ordered_points = a[f2.argsort()[::-1]]
if DEBUG_PLOT==1:
NPOINTS = len(ordered_points)
for i in range(NPOINTS):
plt.plot(ordered_points[i:i+2,0],ordered_points[i:i+2,1],alpha=float(i)/(NPOINTS-1),color='k')
plt.show()
return ordered_points
Sample run -
# Load data in a 2D array with 2 columns
a = np.loadtxt('random_shape.csv',delimiter=' ')
ordered_a = counter_clockwise_order(a, DEBUG_PLOT=1)
Output -

How to remove/omit smaller contour lines using matplotlib

I am trying to plot contour lines of pressure level. I am using a netCDF file which contain the higher resolution data (ranges from 3 km to 27 km). Due to higher resolution data set, I get lot of pressure values which are not required to be plotted (rather I don't mind omitting certain contour line of insignificant values). I have written some plotting script based on the examples given in this link http://matplotlib.org/basemap/users/examples.html.
After plotting the image looks like this
From the image I have encircled the contours which are small and not required to be plotted. Also, I would like to plot all the contour lines smoother as mentioned in the above image. Overall I would like to get the contour image like this:-
Possible solution I think of are
Find out the number of points required for plotting contour and mask/omit those lines if they are small in number.
or
Find the area of the contour (as I want to omit only circled contour) and omit/mask those are smaller.
or
Reduce the resolution (only contour) by increasing the distance to 50 km - 100 km.
I am able to successfully get the points using SO thread Python: find contour lines from matplotlib.pyplot.contour()
But I am not able to implement any of the suggested solution above using those points.
Any solution to implement the above suggested solution is really appreciated.
Edit:-
# Andras Deak
I used print 'diameter is ', diameter line just above del(level.get_paths()[kp]) line to check if the code filters out the required diameter. Here is the filterd messages when I set if diameter < 15000::
diameter is 9099.66295612
diameter is 13264.7838257
diameter is 445.574234531
diameter is 1618.74618114
diameter is 1512.58974168
However the resulting image does not have any effect. All look same as posed image above. I am pretty sure that I have saved the figure (after plotting the wind barbs).
Regarding the solution for reducing the resolution, plt.contour(x[::2,::2],y[::2,::2],mslp[::2,::2]) it works. I have to apply some filter to make the curve smooth.
Full working example code for removing lines:-
Here is the example code for your review
#!/usr/bin/env python
from netCDF4 import Dataset
import matplotlib
matplotlib.use('agg')
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import scipy.ndimage
from mpl_toolkits.basemap import interp
from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap
# Set default map
west_lon = 68
east_lon = 93
south_lat = 7
north_lat = 23
nc = Dataset('ncfile.nc')
# Get this variable for later calucation
temps = nc.variables['T2']
time = 0 # We will take only first interval for this example
# Draw basemap
m = Basemap(projection='merc', llcrnrlat=south_lat, urcrnrlat=north_lat,
llcrnrlon=west_lon, urcrnrlon=east_lon, resolution='l')
m.drawcoastlines()
m.drawcountries(linewidth=1.0)
# This sets the standard grid point structure at full resolution
x, y = m(nc.variables['XLONG'][0], nc.variables['XLAT'][0])
# Set figure margins
width = 10
height = 8
plt.figure(figsize=(width, height))
plt.rc("figure.subplot", left=.001)
plt.rc("figure.subplot", right=.999)
plt.rc("figure.subplot", bottom=.001)
plt.rc("figure.subplot", top=.999)
plt.figure(figsize=(width, height), frameon=False)
# Convert Surface Pressure to Mean Sea Level Pressure
stemps = temps[time] + 6.5 * nc.variables['HGT'][time] / 1000.
mslp = nc.variables['PSFC'][time] * np.exp(9.81 / (287.0 * stemps) * nc.variables['HGT'][time]) * 0.01 + (
6.7 * nc.variables['HGT'][time] / 1000)
# Contour only at 2 hpa interval
level = []
for i in range(mslp.min(), mslp.max(), 1):
if i % 2 == 0:
if i >= 1006 and i <= 1018:
level.append(i)
# Save mslp values to upload to SO thread
# np.savetxt('mslp.txt', mslp, fmt='%.14f', delimiter=',')
P = plt.contour(x, y, mslp, V=2, colors='b', linewidths=2, levels=level)
# Solution suggested by Andras Deak
for level in P.collections:
for kp,path in enumerate(level.get_paths()):
# include test for "smallness" of your choice here:
# I'm using a simple estimation for the diameter based on the
# x and y diameter...
verts = path.vertices # (N,2)-shape array of contour line coordinates
diameter = np.max(verts.max(axis=0) - verts.min(axis=0))
if diameter < 15000: # threshold to be refined for your actual dimensions!
#print 'diameter is ', diameter
del(level.get_paths()[kp]) # no remove() for Path objects:(
#level.remove() # This does not work. produces ValueError: list.remove(x): x not in list
plt.gcf().canvas.draw()
plt.savefig('dummy', bbox_inches='tight')
plt.close()
After the plot is saved I get the same image
You can see that the lines are not removed yet. Here is the link to mslp array which we are trying to play with http://www.mediafire.com/download/7vi0mxqoe0y6pm9/mslp.txt
If you want x and y data which are being used in the above code, I can upload for your review.
Smooth line
You code to remove the smaller circles working perfectly. However the other question I have asked in the original post (smooth line) does not seems to work. I have used your code to slice the array to get minimal values and contoured it. I have used the following code to reduce the array size:-
slice = 15
CS = plt.contour(x[::slice,::slice],y[::slice,::slice],mslp[::slice,::slice], colors='b', linewidths=1, levels=levels)
The result is below.
After searching for few hours I found this SO thread having simmilar issue:-
Regridding regular netcdf data
But none of the solution provided over there works.The questions similar to mine above does not have proper solutions. If this issue is solved then the code is perfect and complete.

General idea
Your question seems to have 2 very different halves: one about omitting small contours, and another one about smoothing the contour lines. The latter is simpler, since I can't really think of anything else other than decreasing the resolution of your contour() call, just like you said.
As for removing a few contour lines, here's a solution which is based on directly removing contour lines individually. You have to loop over the collections of the object returned by contour(), and for each element check each Path, and delete the ones you don't need. Redrawing the figure's canvas will get rid of the unnecessary lines:
# dummy example based on matplotlib.pyplot.clabel example:
import matplotlib
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.cm as cm
import matplotlib.mlab as mlab
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
delta = 0.025
x = np.arange(-3.0, 3.0, delta)
y = np.arange(-2.0, 2.0, delta)
X, Y = np.meshgrid(x, y)
Z1 = mlab.bivariate_normal(X, Y, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0)
Z2 = mlab.bivariate_normal(X, Y, 1.5, 0.5, 1, 1)
# difference of Gaussians
Z = 10.0 * (Z2 - Z1)
plt.figure()
CS = plt.contour(X, Y, Z)
for level in CS.collections:
for kp,path in reversed(list(enumerate(level.get_paths()))):
# go in reversed order due to deletions!
# include test for "smallness" of your choice here:
# I'm using a simple estimation for the diameter based on the
# x and y diameter...
verts = path.vertices # (N,2)-shape array of contour line coordinates
diameter = np.max(verts.max(axis=0) - verts.min(axis=0))
if diameter<1: # threshold to be refined for your actual dimensions!
del(level.get_paths()[kp]) # no remove() for Path objects:(
# this might be necessary on interactive sessions: redraw figure
plt.gcf().canvas.draw()
Here's the original(left) and the removed version(right) for a diameter threshold of 1 (note the little piece of the 0 level at the top):
Note that the top little line is removed while the huge cyan one in the middle doesn't, even though both correspond to the same collections element i.e. the same contour level. If we didn't want to allow this, we could've called CS.collections[k].remove(), which would probably be a much safer way of doing the same thing (but it wouldn't allow us to differentiate between multiple lines corresponding to the same contour level).
To show that fiddling around with the cut-off diameter works as expected, here's the result for a threshold of 2:
All in all it seems quite reasonable.
Your actual case
Since you've added your actual data, here's the application to your case. Note that you can directly generate the levels in a single line using np, which will almost give you the same result. The exact same can be achieved in 2 lines (generating an arange, then selecting those that fall between p1 and p2). Also, since you're setting levels in the call to contour, I believe the V=2 part of the function call has no effect.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
# insert actual data here...
Z = np.loadtxt('mslp.txt',delimiter=',')
X,Y = np.meshgrid(np.linspace(0,300000,Z.shape[1]),np.linspace(0,200000,Z.shape[0]))
p1,p2 = 1006,1018
# this is almost the same as the original, although it will produce
# [p1, p1+2, ...] instead of `[Z.min()+n, Z.min()+n+2, ...]`
levels = np.arange(np.maximum(Z.min(),p1),np.minimum(Z.max(),p2),2)
#control
plt.figure()
CS = plt.contour(X, Y, Z, colors='b', linewidths=2, levels=levels)
#modified
plt.figure()
CS = plt.contour(X, Y, Z, colors='b', linewidths=2, levels=levels)
for level in CS.collections:
for kp,path in reversed(list(enumerate(level.get_paths()))):
# go in reversed order due to deletions!
# include test for "smallness" of your choice here:
# I'm using a simple estimation for the diameter based on the
# x and y diameter...
verts = path.vertices # (N,2)-shape array of contour line coordinates
diameter = np.max(verts.max(axis=0) - verts.min(axis=0))
if diameter<15000: # threshold to be refined for your actual dimensions!
del(level.get_paths()[kp]) # no remove() for Path objects:(
# this might be necessary on interactive sessions: redraw figure
plt.gcf().canvas.draw()
plt.show()
Results, original(left) vs new(right):
Smoothing by resampling
I've decided to tackle the smoothing problem as well. All I could come up with is downsampling your original data, then upsampling again using griddata (interpolation). The downsampling part could also be done with interpolation, although the small-scale variation in your input data might make this problem ill-posed. So here's the crude version:
import scipy.interpolate as interp #the new one
# assume you have X,Y,Z,levels defined as before
# start resampling stuff
dN = 10 # use every dN'th element of the gridded input data
my_slice = [slice(None,None,dN),slice(None,None,dN)]
# downsampled data
X2,Y2,Z2 = X[my_slice],Y[my_slice],Z[my_slice]
# same as X2 = X[::dN,::dN] etc.
# upsampling with griddata over original mesh
Zsmooth = interp.griddata(np.array([X2.ravel(),Y2.ravel()]).T,Z2.ravel(),(X,Y),method='cubic')
# plot
plt.figure()
CS = plt.contour(X, Y, Zsmooth, colors='b', linewidths=2, levels=levels)
You can freely play around with the grids used for interpolation, in this case I just used the original mesh, as it was at hand. You can also play around with different kinds of interpolation: the default 'linear' one will be faster, but less smooth.
Result after downsampling(left) and upsampling(right):
Of course you should still apply the small-line-removal algorithm after this resampling business, and keep in mind that this heavily distorts your input data (since if it wasn't distorted, then it wouldn't be smooth). Also, note that due to the crude method used in the downsampling step, we introduce some missing values near the top/right edges of the region under consideraton. If this is a problem, you should consider doing the downsampling based on griddata as I've noted earlier.

This is a pretty bad solution, but it's the only one that I've come up with. Use the get_contour_verts function in this solution you linked to, possibly with the matplotlib._cntr module so that nothing gets plotted initially. That gives you a list of contour lines, sections, vertices, etc. Then you have to go through that list and pop the contours you don't want. You could do this by calculating a minimum diameter, for example; if the max distance between points is less than some cutoff, throw it out.
That leaves you with a list of LineCollection objects. Now if you make a Figure and Axes instance, you can use Axes.add_collection to add all of the LineCollections in the list.
I checked this out really quick, but it seemed to work. I'll come back with a minimum working example if I get a chance. Hope it helps!
Edit: Here's an MWE of the basic idea. I wasn't familiar with plt._cntr.Cntr, so I ended up using plt.contour to get the initial contour object. As a result, you end up making two figures; you just have to close the first one. You can replace checkDiameter with whatever function works. I think you could turn the line segments into a Polygon and calculate areas, but you'd have to figure that out on your own. Let me know if you run into problems with this code, but it at least works for me.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib as mpl
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def checkDiameter(seg, tol=.3):
# Function for screening line segments. NB: Not actually a proper diameter.
diam = (seg[:,0].max() - seg[:,0].min(),
seg[:,1].max() - seg[:,1].min())
return not (diam[0] < tol or diam[1] < tol)
# Create testing data
x = np.linspace(-1,1, 21)
xx, yy = np.meshgrid(x,x)
z = np.exp(-(xx**2 + .5*yy**2))
# Original plot with plt.contour
fig0, ax0 = plt.subplots()
# Make sure this contour object actually has a tiny contour to remove
cntrObj = ax0.contour(xx,yy,z, levels=[.2,.4,.6,.8,.9,.95,.99,.999])
# Primary loop: Copy contours into a new LineCollection
lineNew = list()
for lineOriginal in cntrObj.collections:
# Get properties of the original LineCollection
segments = lineOriginal.get_segments()
propDict = lineOriginal.properties()
propDict = {key: value for (key,value) in propDict.items()
if key in ['linewidth','color','linestyle']} # Whatever parameters you want to carry over
# Filter out the lines with small diameters
segments = [seg for seg in segments if checkDiameter(seg)]
# Create new LineCollection out of the OK segments
if len(segments) > 0:
lineNew.append(mpl.collections.LineCollection(segments, **propDict))
# Make new plot with only these line collections; display results
fig1, ax1 = plt.subplots()
ax1.set_xlim(ax0.get_xlim())
ax1.set_ylim(ax0.get_ylim())
for line in lineNew:
ax1.add_collection(line)
plt.show()
FYI: The bit with propDict is just to automate bringing over some of the line properties from the original plot. You can't use the whole dictionary at once, though. First, it contains the old plot's line segments, but you can just swap those for the new ones. But second, it appears to contain a number of parameters that are in conflict with each other: multiple linewidths, facecolors, etc. The {key for key in propDict if I want key} workaround is my way to bypass that, but I'm sure someone else can do it more cleanly.