8. Tips and Tricks, code snippets 

8.1. Which PyCS am I using ?

If you have several copies, from SVN or installed…

import pycs3
print(pycs3.__file__)

8.2. “Faking” PyCS3 delay or error measurements 

This is useful if you want to include measurements from non-pycs techniques on the typical pycs3 plots

# To fake a PyCS3 delay measurement :
data = [{"label":"AB", "mean":-118.6, "med":0.0, "std":0.0}]

# To fake a PyCS3 errorbar :
"""
data = [{
"label":"AB",
"sys":3.0,
"ran":4.0,
"tot":5.0,
"bias":-3.0
}]
"""
outname = "sims_copies_runresults_rathna_May07_delays.pkl"
dc = pycs3.sim.plot.delaycontainer(data = data, name = "Difference-smoothing technique", plotcolour = "darkorange", objects=["A", "B"])
pycs3.gen.util.writepickle(dc, outname)

8.3. Building scrolling plots for long curves 

# Animated plot for talk :

startjd = 52900.0
width = 1000.0
endjd = 55800.0
n = 1000

for i in range(n):

        a = startjd + i* (endjd - width - startjd)/(n-1)
        b = a + width

        filename = "mov/%i.png" % (i)
        pycs3.gen.lc_func.display(lcs, nicefont=True, showdelays=False, showlegend=False, showdates=True, showgrid=True, magrange=(4.3, 0), jdrange=(a, b), filename=filename)

And then use ffmpeg (or any other similar tool) to turn this into a movie.

8.4. Tweaking magnitudes for individual seasons 

For a lightcurve l, l.mags is just a numpy array. To lower the third season by 0.03 mags :

seasons = pycs3.gen.sea.autofactory(l)
l.mags[seasons[2].indices] += 0.03

8.5. Playing with custom properties 

You can perfectly create your own properties. It’s just a list of dicts …

for i in range(len(l)):
        l.properties[i]["my_new_prop"] = "brocoli"

# To see what properties a curve has :
print(l.longinfo())

“Common” properties are properties that all points of the curve have (this is usually the case). Only those “common” properties can be exported as columns in rdb files, for instance.

8.6. Splitting a curve by properties 

def splitbyprop(l, prop = "telescope"):
        """
        kills mask ...
        """

        vals = sorted(list(set([l.properties[i][prop] for i in range(len(l))])))

        out = []
        for val in vals:
                lcp = l.copy()
                lcp.mask = np.array([l.properties[i][prop] == val for i in range(len(l))])
                lcp.cutmask()
                lcp.telescopename = val
                out.append(lcp)

        #pycs3.gen.mrg.colourise(out)
        return out