StokesPy Documentation

StokesPy is a (future) Sunpy-affiliated packaged for the analysis of polarized light from the Sun and the inferred solar atmosphere and magnetic field (inversion products). StokesPy aims to simplify importing and visualizing common datasets of polarized light and inversion products, as well as provide common operations general to all such datasets.

For polarized spectra, the highest dimensionality data object is the StokesCube, which represents a map (two spatial dimensions) of profiles (wavelength) of the 4 Stokes parameters (IQUV), making a seven-dimensional object. StokesPy is based on the ndcube package which provides support for coordinate-aware slicing of this multidimensional data. StokesPy implements dimensionality-aware subclasses to represent and visualize maps of a given Stokes parameter and wavelength, slits, and profiles at a given pixel coordinate.

For inversion products, StokesPy currently implements an object to represent vector magnetograms, MagVectorCube. Future versions of StokesPy will provide representations of slab atmospheres and stratified atmospheres, and provide tools to aid in the comparison of synthesized polarized spectra from model atmospheres to observational data.

• Introduction to StokesPy
• Installing StokesPy
• Stokes Classes
• Atmosphere Classes
• API Reference
• Release History

Getting Help

If you are unsure of the general features of the stokespy package, your first stop should be this document which we strive to make as comprehensive, yet understandable, as possible.

If you would like to know more about how to use a specific function, class, etc., documentation for each object is in the API Reference of this guide. Interactive help should be solicited at the resources described on this SunPy help page. Be sure to clearly indicate you are working with StokesPy.

Reporting Bugs

If you run into unexpected behavior or a bug please report it. All bugs are raised and stored on our issue tracker. If you are not sure if your problem is a bug, you can either send a message to the chat room or open an issue. Ideally, we would like a short code example so we can run into the bug on our own machines.

Using StokesPy in your project

The vision of StokesPy is to provide a common interface and toolset for the various spectropolarimetric datasets and inversion codes in the community. In addition to the data containers, it provides a repository of instrument/inversion code-specific data loading routines. If you are interested in adding data loaders for your dataset/inversion code to StokesPy, please get in touch with the developers to begin a discussion.

Contributing to StokesPy

We are always enthusiastic to welcome new users and developers who want to enhance StokesPy You can contribute in several ways, from providing feedback, reporting bugs, contributing code, and reviewing pull requests. There is a role for almost any level of engagement.

If you would like to contribute code, it is strongly recommended that you first discuss your aims with the StokesPy community. We strive to be an open and welcoming community for developers of all experience levels. Discussing your ideas before you start can give you new insights that will make your development easier, lead to a better end product, and reduce the chances of your work being regretfully rejected because of an issue you weren’t aware of, e.g. the functionality already exists elsewhere.

The best guide we provide comes from the sunpy newcomers guide.