OPT Files#

OPT files are a modification of the standard config files. They are designed to be more light weight and reusable in non-Python based workflows. They share much of their syntax with config files. Instead of having a "plots" section, OPT files have multiple groups of plots with common settings, such as a common "bbox".

Structure#

As stated the structure of an OPT is largely the same as the config. The OPT shares its "globals" field with the config’s “globals”, with the exception that "paths" are excluded since they will be generated. The main difference comes in how plots are defined. OPTs use what are referred to as plot groups. These groups are designed to reduce redundancy as much as possible.

Groups#

Groups are plots that share some common setting or settings. These settings are defined once and the passed to all members of that group. Each group is a dict that contains the common settings and the plot dicts for the plots in that group. When the group only has one common setting, the name of that group is the key that refers to that setting within the group. When there are multiple common settings, the name of the group is named "group" and contains a dict also named "group" with the common settings.

If a group contains no common settings it is named "default". This group behaves like the "plots" section from a config file. This is helpful for placing a plots in between groups.

“deflist” and fill#

"deflist" is an optional "globals" keyword that defines what datatypes will be used in the OPT. This can be used in conjunction with the fill option.

Caution

"deflist" is not optional if "opt" is not defined in settings.json. How vispipe.opt_reader() handles "deflist" and "models" will be reworked to fix this.

An example opt showing the three types of groups.#

{
    "globals": {
        "global_kwargs":{ "cmap": "jet"},
        "deflist": [ "maxele","grd","minpr","maxwvel" ],
        "maxele": {"cmap": "magma"}

    },

    "default":{
        "grd": "default",
        "maxele":{
            "cmap": "viridis",
            "crange": "mm",
            "title": "EC95"
        },
        "maxele:0":{
            "bbox": [-78,43.8,-76,44.4]
        },
        "minpr": "default"
    },

    "bbox":{
        "bbox": [-78,43.8,-75.5,44.7],
        "grd": "default",
        "maxele":{
            "cmap": "viridis",
            "crange": "mm",
            "title": "EC95"
        },
        "maxele:0":{
            "bbox": [-78,43.8,-76,44.4]
        },
        "minpr": "default"
    },

    "group":{
        "group":{
            "bbox": [-78,43.8,-76,44.4],
            "title":"Test Title"
        },
        "grd": "default",
        "maxele":{
            "cmap": "viridis",
            "crange": "mm",
            "title": "EC95"
        },
        "minpr": "default",
        "maxwvel": {
            "crange": ["s",-1.5,1.5]
        }
    }
}

Specifying Models#

OPT files are designed to take into account specific models and datatypes associated with those models. To accomplish this, models are defined in settings.json and the opt file itself has its model specified. To make this specification, either use the "models" keyword with a list of the contained models in the OPT itself or name the OPT file *_*_{model}_opt.json.

Important

Currently, model specification is very ridged. "models" must be a or naming must follow the proper format. These requirements will be tweaked in the future.

“fill” keyword#

The "fill" keyword is used to further simplify the OPT files. It uses the datatypes defined in settings.json to fill a group if some datatypes are not defined. This can be controlled by using the "fill" keyword with a bool at the global or group level, by using the -n option on the command line, or by settling the fill kwarg in vispipe.opt_reader. This allows for very simple OPT files. If all that is needed is the default of all defined types in settings.json "opt", the opt would look like this:

The model name would be defined in the file name in this case.#

{
    "default": null
}

Usage#

OPTs are not used directly by vispipe.vispipe. They are first converted into a standard config dictionary by vispipe.opt_reader and the used by vispipe.vispipe. vispipe.opt_reader only takes a path or a list of paths. From the command line this is no different from a normal config, with the addition of some other flags. Additionally, the -d flag can be used to write a config from the OPT file.