Usage¶
Functionality as follows:
MkMov v0.4
This is a python package for making movies. It has four things it can do:
[T1] movie of a netCDF file plotting contourf output (see "python mkmov.py 2d -h");
[T2] movie of a netCDF file plotting slices of a 3d variable as a 3d cube (see "python mkmov.py 3dcube -h");
[T3] movie of a netCDF file plotting a 2d variable as a 3d surface (see "python mkmov.py 3dsurf -h");
[T4] stitch a list of png files into a movie ("see python mkmov.py stitch -h").
[T5] movie of two netCDF files plotting quiver of U/V fields from a C-grid
[T6] movie of a netCDF file plotting pcolormesh output using basemap
Usage:
mkmov.py -h --help
mkmov.py <command> [-h --help] [<args>...]
Commands:
2d [T1] use a netCDF file make a contourf of a 2d field
3dcube [T2] use a netCDF file make a movie of a 3d field as a 3d cube
3dsurf [T3] use a netCDF file make a movie of a 2d field as a 3d surface
stitch [T4] stitch files together using ffmpeg
quiver [T5] use two netCDF files to make a quiver of a 2d field
2dbm [T6] use a netCDF file make a contourf of a 2d field and use basemap
examples show some examples of commands that work 'out of the box'
See 'python mkmov.py help <command>' for more information on a specific command.
Basic usage¶
We have tried to make this program as easy to install and use as possible. Interface is by command line and everything is done in one line!
A 2d movie (usage [T1]) is a good place to start, some of the options are the same across functions.
Basic usage, to make a 2d movie from a netCDF file is as follows:
#First activate python environment that has matplotlib, numpy and netCDF4 packages..
git clone https://github.com/chrisb13/mkmov
cd mkmov
python mkmov.py 2d VARIABLE_NAME FILE_NAME
That’s it! A .mov file will appear in a temporary directory as directed by the output (alternatively suggest an absolute path with -o option).
Usage, to make a movie from a list of png files (usage [T4]) is as follows:
#First activate python environment that has matplotlib, numpy and netCDF4 packages..
git clone https://github.com/chrisb13/mkmov
cd mkmov
python mkmov.py stitch *.png FILE_NAMES
Here’s a full example:
Note: you can pause the script and copy the code! This movie refers to an older version of MkMov, insert ‘2d’ after ‘python mkmov.py’.
MkMov comes with a few working examples which can be found by python mkmov.py examples. A netCDF file and some example png files are included in the examples folder, so these examples should work ‘out of the box’. Indeed, these same examples form our testing suite!
Head over to the examples section to see some output and example commands:
Usage comments¶
- Mkmov will start faster and require much less memory resources if the –min MINIMUM and –max MAXIMUM arguments are used, see advanced usage below. Particularly important when passing multiple files.
- Mkmov expects full paths not relative paths.
- Usage [T2],[T3] are still in beta.