PyGMT
A Python interface for the Generic Mapping Tools
Documentation (development version) | Contact | TryOnline
Why PyGMT?
A beautiful map is worth a thousand words. To truly understand how powerful PyGMT is, play with it online on
Binder! For a quicker introduction, check out our
3 minute overview!
Afterwards, feel free to look at our Tutorials, visit the
Gallery, and check out some
external PyGMT examples!
About
PyGMT is a library for processing geospatial and geophysical data and making publication-quality
maps and figures. It provides a Pythonic interface for the
Generic Mapping Tools (GMT), a command-line program
widely used across the Earth, Ocean, and Planetary sciences and beyond.
Project goals
- Make GMT more accessible to new users.
- Build a Pythonic API for GMT.
- Interface with the GMT C API directly using ctypes (no system calls).
- Support for rich display in the Jupyter notebook.
- Integration with the PyData ecosystem:
numpy.ndarray
or pandas.DataFrame
for
data tables, xarray.DataArray
for grids, and geopandas.GeoDataFrame
for geographical data.
Quickstart
Installation
Simple installation using mamba:
mamba install --channel conda-forge pygmt
If you use conda:
conda install --channel conda-forge pygmt
For other ways to install pygmt
, see the full installation instructions.
Getting started
As a starting point, you can open a Python interpreter
or a Jupyter notebook, and try the following example:
import pygmt
fig = pygmt.Figure()
fig.coast(projection="N15c", region="g", frame=True, land="tan", water="lightblue")
fig.text(position="MC", text="PyGMT", font="80p,Helvetica-Bold,red@75")
fig.show()
You should see a global map with land and water masses colored in tan and lightblue, respectively. On top,
there should be the semi-transparent text "PyGMT". For more examples, please have a look at the
Gallery and
Tutorials.
Contacting us
Contributing
Code of conduct
Please note that this project is released with a
Contributor Code of Conduct.
By participating in this project you agree to abide by its terms.
Contributing guidelines
Please read our Contributing Guide
to see how you can help and give feedback.
Imposter syndrome disclaimer
We want your help. No, really.
There may be a little voice inside your head that is telling you that you're not ready to be an open source
contributor; that your skills aren't nearly good enough to contribute. What could you possibly offer?
We assure you that the little voice in your head is wrong.
Being a contributor doesn't just mean writing code. Equally important contributions include: writing or
proof-reading documentation, suggesting or implementing tests, or even giving feedback about the project
(including giving feedback about the contribution process). If you're coming to the project with fresh eyes,
you might see the errors and assumptions that seasoned contributors have glossed over. If you can write any
code at all, you can contribute code to open source. We are constantly trying out new skills, making mistakes,
and learning from those mistakes. That's how we all improve and we are happy to help others learn.
This disclaimer was adapted from the MetPy project.
Citing PyGMT
PyGMT is a community developed project. See the
AUTHORS.md file on GitHub for a list of
the people involved and a definition of the term "PyGMT Developers". Feel free to cite our work in your
research using the following BibTeX:
@software{
pygmt_2024_13679420,
author = {Tian, Dongdong and
Uieda, Leonardo and
Leong, Wei Ji and
Fröhlich, Yvonne and
Schlitzer, William and
Grund, Michael and
Jones, Max and
Toney, Liam and
Yao, Jiayuan and
Magen, Yohai and
Tong, Jing-Hui and
Materna, Kathryn and
Belem, Andre and
Newton, Tyler and
Anant, Abhishek and
Ziebarth, Malte and
Quinn, Jamie and
Wessel, Paul},
title = {{PyGMT: A Python interface for the Generic Mapping Tools}},
month = sep,
year = 2024,
publisher = {Zenodo},
version = {0.13.0},
doi = {10.5281/zenodo.13679420},
url = {https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13679420}
}
To cite a specific version of PyGMT, go to our Zenodo page at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3781524
and use the "Export to BibTeX" function there. It is also strongly recommended to cite the
GMT 6 paper (which PyGMT wraps around). Note that some modules
like dimfilter
, surface
, and x2sys
also have their dedicated citations. Further information for
all these can be found at https://www.generic-mapping-tools.org/cite.
License
PyGMT is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the
BSD 3-clause License. A copy of this license is provided in
LICENSE.txt.
Support
The development of PyGMT has been supported by NSF grants
OCE-1558403 and
EAR-1948603.
Related projects
Other official wrappers for GMT:
- GMT.jl: A Julia wrapper for GMT.
- gmtmex: A Matlab/Octave wrapper for GMT.
Minimum supported versions
PyGMT has adopted SPEC 0 alongside the
rest of the Scientific Python ecosystem, and therefore:
- Support for Python versions be dropped 3 years after their initial release.
- Support for core package dependencies (NumPy/Pandas/Xarray) be dropped 2 years after
their initial release.
Similarly, the PyGMT team has decided to discontinue support for GMT versions 3 years
after their initial release.
Please see Minimum Supported Versions for
the minimum supported versions of GMT, Python and core package dependencies.