🎨 Plot Appearance & Accessibility

SounderPy provides several options for changing the presentation of sounding and hodograph figures without changing the underlying atmospheric profile.

In this tutorial you will:

  • retrieve one observed sounding;

  • compare light and dark plotting modes;

  • compare standard and color-deficiency-friendly sounding colors;

  • save figures and control output resolution;

  • combine appearance options;

  • reproduce the same workflow from the SounderPy CLI.

Using the same profile for each comparison makes it easier to see exactly what each plotting option changes.

Retrieve the Example Sounding

The examples use the OAX observed sounding from 16 June 2014 at 18 UTC.

import sounderpy as spy

data = spy.get_obs_data(
    "OAX",
    "2014",
    "06",
    "16",
    "18",
    hush=True,
)

Light and Dark Soundings

Light Mode

The default SounderPy plot uses a light background:

spy.build_sounding(
    data,
    dark_mode=False,
    radar=None,
    map_zoom=0,
)
Light-mode SounderPy sounding

Dark Mode

Set dark_mode=True to use the dark-background plotting theme:

spy.build_sounding(
    data,
    dark_mode=True,
    radar=None,
    map_zoom=0,
)
Dark-mode SounderPy sounding

The profile data and parameter calculations are unchanged; only the presentation is different.

Light and Dark Hodographs

The same dark_mode argument is available for standalone hodographs.

Light-mode SounderPy hodograph

Light Mode

 Dark-mode SounderPy hodograph

Dark Mode

Create them with:

spy.build_hodograph(
    data,
    dark_mode=False,
    radar=None,
    map_zoom=0,
)

spy.build_hodograph(
    data,
    dark_mode=True,
    radar=None,
    map_zoom=0,
)

Color-Deficiency-Friendly Soundings

SounderPy can change the dewpoint-trace styling to improve visual distinction for users with color-vision deficiencies.

Standard Colors

spy.build_sounding(
    data,
    color_blind=False,
    radar=None,
    map_zoom=0,
)
SounderPy sounding using standard colors

Color-Deficiency-Friendly Colors

spy.build_sounding(
    data,
    color_blind=True,
    radar=None,
    map_zoom=0,
)
SounderPy color-deficiency-friendly sounding

Combining Appearance Options

Appearance options can be combined:

spy.build_sounding(
    data,
    dark_mode=True,
    color_blind=True,
    radar=None,
    map_zoom=0,
)

Saving Figures

Set save=True and provide filename to save a figure instead of showing it interactively:

spy.build_sounding(
    data,
    dark_mode=True,
    radar=None,
    map_zoom=0,
    save=True,
    filename="oax_dark_sounding.png",
)

The default figure resolution is 100 DPI. Increase it with dpi:

spy.build_sounding(
    data,
    dark_mode=True,
    radar=None,
    map_zoom=0,
    dpi=200,
    save=True,
    filename="oax_dark_sounding.png",
)

CLI Equivalents

Light-mode sounding:

sounderpy obs OAX 2014-06-16 18 \
    --plot sounding \
    --map-zoom 0

Dark-mode sounding:

sounderpy obs OAX 2014-06-16 18 \
    --plot sounding \
    --dark-mode \
    --map-zoom 0 \
    --plot-file oax_dark.png

Color-deficiency-friendly sounding:

sounderpy obs OAX 2014-06-16 18 \
    --plot sounding \
    --color-blind \
    --map-zoom 0 \
    --plot-file oax_colorblind.png

Combined:

sounderpy obs OAX 2014-06-16 18 \
    --plot sounding \
    --dark-mode \
    --color-blind \
    --map-zoom 0 \
    --dpi 200 \
    --plot-file oax_dark_colorblind.png

Next Steps

Continue to Maps & Radar to control the geographic inset and radar display.

See also: