Visualising with Basemap
6th August 2019
Plotting DES institutions in a beautiful way
I’m scheduled to give a talk for the Dark Energy Survey - a massive collection of researchers, engineers and institutions working together to try and constrain the nature of Dark Energy. To help give my presentations some pizzaz, I thought it would be nice to visualise the spread of institutions around the world that makes DES the wonderful organisation that it is.
Wheres the data
Unfortunately… I had to collect it by hand. Going through the DES website, writing down each partner, manually gettings its latitude and longitude (yes I know there’s an API, but that would have taken longer). You can find it here.
import pandas as pd
data = pd.read_csv("desinstitutions\institutions.csv")
data.head()
| shortname | longname | long | lat | country | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | Fermilab | Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory | 41.840944 | -88.279393 | US |
| 1 | Chicago | University of Chicago | 41.788536 | -87.598960 | US |
| 2 | UIUC | University of Illinois | 41.865848 | -87.645245 | US |
| 3 | NCSA | National Center for Supercomputing Applications | 40.115045 | -88.224302 | US |
| 4 | LBNL | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory | 37.875526 | -122.252252 | US |
Using basemap
Le’s start with just a generic outline.
from ipykernel import kernelapp as app
Great. It a pain to remove the larger rivers, involves downloading a new shape file, so we’ll live with it.
Add the dots
Let’s see what it looks like if we just add some dots, with each country having a unique colour.
import numpy as np
colors = {
"Australia": "#FFB300",
"US": "#1976D2",
"UK": "#4DD0E1",
"Germany": "#98e63e",
"Spain": "#E91E63",
"Switzerland": "#FB8C00",
"Brazil": "#43A047",
"South Africa": "#8956e3",
"Chile": "#f74f98"
}
def get_scatter():
m = get_base_fig()
# Loop over each country and its institutions
for country in np.unique(data.country):
c = colors[country]
subset = data.loc[data.country == country, :]
m.scatter(subset.long, subset.lat, latlon=True, c=c, s=4, zorder=1)
return m
get_scatter();
from ipykernel import kernelapp as app
I mean… it’s nice. But cool graphics glow. So let’s put in a super nasty manual glow effect, and then replot the scatter point in translucent white above it. To do this, we’ll create one hell of a meshgred. Efficient… no. Easy… still no.
from matplotlib.colors import LinearSegmentedColormap as LSC
def get_shaded():
m = get_scatter()
# Compute the limits and mesh
x0, y0 = m(-170, -80)
x1, y1 = m(190, 90)
xs, ys = np.linspace(x0, x1, 2000), np.linspace(y0, y1, 2000)
X, Y = np.meshgrid(xs, ys)
zs = []
scale = 1.2 # The size of the blur
for country in np.unique(data.country):
# Find the colour and create a smooth colour ramp
c = colors[country]
cmap = LSC.from_list("fade", [c + "00", c,"#FFFFFF"], N=1000)
subset = data.loc[data.country == country, :]
# Find a vmax that looks good on all countries
vmax = min(2, 0.7 * subset.shape[0]**0.7)
# Compute the mesh values
z = np.zeros(X.shape)
for row in subset.itertuples(index=False):
x, y = m(row.lat, row.long)
dist = ((x - X)**2 + (y - Y)**2)**0.25 # Sharp falloff
z += np.exp(-dist * scale)
# Show the mesh and add the white dots
m.imshow(z, origin="lower", extent=[x0,x1,y0,y1],
cmap=cmap, vmax=vmax, zorder=2)
m.scatter(subset.lat, subset.long, latlon=True, c="#FFFFFF",
alpha=0.8, s=2, zorder=3)
# Set the title, and make the background black
plt.title("DES Institutions around the world", fontsize=14,
color="#EEEEEE", fontname="Open Sans")
fig = plt.gcf()
fig.patch.set_facecolor("#000000")
return m
get_shaded();
from ipykernel import kernelapp as app
Great, well that’s something I would call good enough for now. Of course… it would be better if it was animated. But that is definitely not something I intend to do in a notebook! In fact, I’ve done it already, you can see it below:
For your convenience, here’s the code in one block:
import pandas as pd
data = pd.read_csv("desinstitutions\institutions.csv")
data.head()
import os
# Sorry about this, shouldn't have install it in the root env, but ah well
os.environ['PROJ_LIB'] = r'C:\Anaconda3\pkgs\proj4-5.2.0-ha925a31_1\Library\share'
from mpl_toolkits.basemap import Basemap
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def get_base_fig():
# Lets define some colors
bg_color = "#000000"
coast_color = "#333333"
country_color = "#222222"
plt.figure(figsize=(12, 6))
m = Basemap(projection='cyl', llcrnrlat=-80,urcrnrlat=90,
llcrnrlon=-170, urcrnrlon=190, area_thresh=10000.)
m.fillcontinents(color=bg_color, lake_color=bg_color, zorder=-2)
m.drawcoastlines(color=coast_color, linewidth=1.0, zorder=-1)
m.drawcountries(color=country_color, linewidth=1.0, zorder=-1)
m.drawmapboundary(fill_color=bg_color, zorder=-2)
return m
get_base_fig();
import numpy as np
colors = {
"Australia": "#FFB300",
"US": "#1976D2",
"UK": "#4DD0E1",
"Germany": "#98e63e",
"Spain": "#E91E63",
"Switzerland": "#FB8C00",
"Brazil": "#43A047",
"South Africa": "#8956e3",
"Chile": "#f74f98"
}
def get_scatter():
m = get_base_fig()
# Loop over each country and its institutions
for country in np.unique(data.country):
c = colors[country]
subset = data.loc[data.country == country, :]
m.scatter(subset.long, subset.lat, latlon=True, c=c, s=4, zorder=1)
return m
get_scatter();
from matplotlib.colors import LinearSegmentedColormap as LSC
def get_shaded():
m = get_scatter()
# Compute the limits and mesh
x0, y0 = m(-170, -80)
x1, y1 = m(190, 90)
xs, ys = np.linspace(x0, x1, 2000), np.linspace(y0, y1, 2000)
X, Y = np.meshgrid(xs, ys)
zs = []
scale = 1.2 # The size of the blur
for country in np.unique(data.country):
# Find the colour and create a smooth colour ramp
c = colors[country]
cmap = LSC.from_list("fade", [c + "00", c,"#FFFFFF"], N=1000)
subset = data.loc[data.country == country, :]
# Find a vmax that looks good on all countries
vmax = min(2, 0.7 * subset.shape[0]**0.7)
# Compute the mesh values
z = np.zeros(X.shape)
for row in subset.itertuples(index=False):
x, y = m(row.lat, row.long)
dist = ((x - X)**2 + (y - Y)**2)**0.25 # Sharp falloff
z += np.exp(-dist * scale)
# Show the mesh and add the white dots
m.imshow(z, origin="lower", extent=[x0,x1,y0,y1],
cmap=cmap, vmax=vmax, zorder=2)
m.scatter(subset.lat, subset.long, latlon=True, c="#FFFFFF",
alpha=0.8, s=2, zorder=3)
# Set the title, and make the background black
plt.title("DES Institutions around the world", fontsize=14,
color="#EEEEEE", fontname="Open Sans")
fig = plt.gcf()
fig.patch.set_facecolor("#000000")
return m
get_shaded();