.. api.plot:

********************************
Plotting operations
********************************

The package uses a few utility classes and functions to make consistent plotting easy thoughout the package.
This reference page documents the lower-level utilities used to make this happen.

.. note::

    The built-in routines to plot ``Section`` and ``Plan`` objects are not documented here, look for documentation on those high-level methods in their respective module documentation.

.. hint::

  There is a complete :doc:`Visualization Guide </guides/subject_guides/visualization>` about the organization of this area of DeltaMetrics and examples for how to use and make visualizations.

The functions are defined in ``deltametrics.plot``. 

.. _default_styling:

Default styling
===============

By default, each variable receives a set of styling definitions.
The default parameters of each styling variable are defined below:

.. plot:: plot/document_variableset.py


Plotting utility objects
========================

These objects are mostly used internally to help make plots appear consistent across the library.
You may want to examine these to change the style of plotting across the package.

.. currentmodule:: deltametrics.plot

.. autosummary:: 
    :toctree: ../../_autosummary

    VariableInfo
    VariableSet


Plotting convenience functions
==============================

These functions may be helpful in making figures and exploring during analyses.
Mostly, these functions provide a component of a plot.

.. autofunction:: aerial_view
.. autofunction:: overlay_sparse_array

.. autofunction:: style_axes_km
.. autofunction:: append_colorbar


DeltaMetrics plot routines
==========================

These functions are similar to the convenience functions above, but mostly produce their own plots entirely, rather than adding a component of a plot.

.. autosummary:: 
    :toctree: ../../_autosummary

    show_one_dimensional_trajectory_to_strata
    show_histograms


DeltaMetrics colormaps
======================

.. autofunction:: cartographic_colormap
.. autofunction:: aerial_colormap
.. autofunction:: vintage_colormap


Plotting utility functions
==========================

These functions are mostly used internally.

.. autofunction:: get_display_arrays
.. autofunction:: get_display_lines
.. autofunction:: get_display_limits
.. autofunction:: _fill_steps
.. autofunction:: _scale_lightness