Rshow PHDF plot viewer

rshow.py is an interactive viewer for one- and two-dimensional Parthenon PHDF output. It supports multiple plot panels, dump playback, publication-quality figure output, and MP4 or GIF movie export.

Requirements

The viewer requires Python with Tkinter support, NumPy, Matplotlib, and the Parthenon phdf reader. The reader must be importable as either phdf or parthenon_tools.phdf.

MP4 export additionally requires ffmpeg. On macOS it can be installed with:

brew install ffmpeg

GIF export requires Pillow:

python -m pip install pillow

Running the viewer

Start with an empty viewer:

python path/to/rshow.py

or open a particular dump immediately:

python path/to/rshow.py path/to/problem.out0.00000.phdf

Opening a dump also discovers all *.phdf files in the same directory. They become available in the Dump menu, through Previous and Next, and for playback and movie export.

Basic plotting

  1. Select Open dump… and choose a PHDF file.

  2. Choose a field from Variable.

  3. If the field has component or slice dimensions, enter one comma-separated integer per dimension in Selector indices. For example, 4,0 selects component 4 and z-plane 0. The field shape and number of selectable axes are displayed above the entry.

  4. Adjust the limits or plotting options, then select Plot.

The viewer detects the mesh dimensionality. A one-dimensional mesh is drawn as a line plot; a two-dimensional mesh is drawn with pcolormesh. Selecting a different dump or variable recalculates the ranges automatically.

Plot controls

Color min and Color max set the color limits for a two-dimensional plot. Equal limits and constant-valued fields are expanded automatically. For one-dimensional plots, y min and y max set the vertical limits. Blank limit fields use automatically determined values.

Log scale applies logarithmic color normalization in two dimensions and a logarithmic y-axis in one dimension. Values at or below Log floor are not used to determine an automatic logarithmic range.

Block outlines draws the boundary of each mesh block. Equal aspect uses equal physical scaling in x and y. Auto-scale plot styling adjusts fonts, tick marks, axes frames, and line widths as the window is resized. The Base font size controls the reference size.

Use Auto ranges to restore data and coordinate limits. Save figure… writes PDF, SVG, or PNG; PDF and SVG are preferable for publication figures.

Multiple panels

Use Add… under Additional panels to select another variable and its selector indices. Additional panels work for both line and pseudocolor plots.

Select a panel and use Edit…, or double-click its list entry, to change its variable or selector indices. Remove deletes the selected panel. Layout can arrange panels left-to-right, top-to-bottom, or automatically according to the window shape.

Playback and movie export

Set FPS and select Play to step through every PHDF file in the dump directory. Loop restarts at the first dump after the last one.

Select Export movie… to render all discovered dumps with the current variables, panels, limits, and styling. Use a filename ending in .mp4 for an MP4 movie through ffmpeg, or .gif for an animated GIF.