Contents

• 1  Introduction
  • 1.1  What it does
  • 1.2  What it doesn’t do
  • 1.3  splash , the paper
  • 1.4  Version History
  • 1.5  Licence
• 2  Getting started
  • 2.1  Compiling the code
    • 2.1.1   Fortran compilers
    • 2.1.2   Compiling and linking with giza
    • 2.1.3   Reading your data
  • 2.2  Environment variables
    • 2.2.1  giza
    • 2.2.2   Endian changing
    • 2.2.3   Variables affecting all data reads
    • 2.2.4   Ascii data read
    • 2.2.5   GADGET data read
    • 2.2.6   VINE data read
    • 2.2.7   sphNG data read
    • 2.2.8   Stephan Rosswog data read
    • 2.2.9   Dragon data read
    • 2.2.10   H5Part data read
  • 2.3  Command line options
• 3  Basic splash usage
  • 3.1  Simple two column plot
  • 3.2  Rendered plots
  • 3.3  Cross section slice
  • 3.4  Vector plots
  • 3.5  Contour plots
  • 3.6  Moving forwards and backwards through data files
  • 3.7  Zooming in and out / changing plot limits
  • 3.8  Producing an encapsulated postscript figure for a paper
  • 3.9  Producing a sequence of plots for a movie
  • 3.10  Ten quick hints for producing good-looking plots
• 4  Changing plot settings
  • 4.1  set (m)ultiplot
    • 4.1.1   Plotting more than one column from the same file on the same page (multiplot)
    • 4.1.2   Plotting each particle type in a different panel (multiplot)
  • 4.2  (d)ata options
    • 4.2.1   Re-reading the initial data / changing the dump file
    • 4.2.2   Using only a subset of data files / plotting every n−th dump file
    • 4.2.3   Plotting a subset of data files in non-sequential order
    • 4.2.4   Plotting more than one file without re-reading the data from disk
    • 4.2.5   Calculating additional quantities not dumped
    • 4.2.6   Plotting data in physical units
    • 4.2.7   Rescaling data columns
    • 4.2.8   Changing the default column labels
    • 4.2.9   Plotting column density in g/cm² without having x,y,z in cm
    • 4.2.10   Changing physical unit settings
    • 4.2.11   Changing the axis label to something like x [ × 10⁴ ]
    • 4.2.12   Changing the time units
  • 4.3  (i)nteractive mode
    • 4.3.1   Adapting the plot limits
    • 4.3.2   Making the axes logarithmic
    • 4.3.3  Cycling through data columns interactively
    • 4.3.4   Colouring a subset of the particles and retaining this colour through other timesteps
    • 4.3.5   Working out which particles formed a particular object in a simulation
    • 4.3.6   Plotting only a subset of the particles
    • 4.3.7   Rendering using only a subset of the particles
    • 4.3.8   Tracking a set of particles through multiple timesteps
    • 4.3.9   Taking an oblique cross section interactively
  • 4.4  (p)age options
    • 4.4.1   Overlaying timesteps/multiple dump files on top of each other
    • 4.4.2   Plotting results from multiple files in the same panel
    • 4.4.3   Plotting more than one dump file on the same page
    • 4.4.4   Changing axes settings
    • 4.4.5   Turning axes off
    • 4.4.6   Turning axes labels off
    • 4.4.7   Using logarithmic axes labels
    • 4.4.8   Plotting a second, rescaled y-axis on the right hand side of a plot
    • 4.4.9   Changing the size of the plotting surface
    • 4.4.10   Dividing the plotting page into panels
    • 4.4.11   Tiling plots with the same x− and y− axes
    • 4.4.12   Using non-proportional scales for spatial dimensions
    • 4.4.13   Using non-square axes on coordinate plots
    • 4.4.14   Changing the character height for axes, labels and legends
    • 4.4.15   Using a thicker line width on plots
    • 4.4.16   Changing the foreground and background colours
    • 4.4.17   Plotting axes, legends and titles in white even when the labels are plotted in black
  • 4.5  le(g)end and title options
    • 4.5.1   Adding titles to plots / repositioning titles
    • 4.5.2   Turning off/moving the time legend
    • 4.5.3   Changing the text in the time legend
    • 4.5.4   Making the legend read “z=” instead of “t=”
    • 4.5.5   Plotting the time legend on the first row/column of panels / nth panel only
    • 4.5.6   Plotting a length scale on coordinate plots
    • 4.5.7   Annotating a plot with squares, rectangles, arrows, circles and text
    • 4.5.8   Adding your name to a plot/movie
  • 4.6  particle plot (o)ptions
    • 4.6.1   Plotting non-gas particles (e.g. ghosts, boundary, sink particles)
    • 4.6.2   Plotting non-gas particles on top of rendered plots
    • 4.6.3   Using ghost particles in the rendering
    • 4.6.4   Turn off plotting of gas particles
    • 4.6.5   Plotting dark matter particles
    • 4.6.6   Plotting a column density plot of dark matter/N-body particles
    • 4.6.7   Plotting sink particles
    • 4.6.8   Plotting sink particles with size proportional to the sink radius
    • 4.6.9   Plotting a point mass particle with physical size
    • 4.6.10   Changing graph markers for each particle type
    • 4.6.11   Plotting each particle type in a different colour
    • 4.6.12   Changing the order in which different particle types are plotted
    • 4.6.13   Plotting using lines instead of dots (e.g. for energy vs time plots)
    • 4.6.14   Plotting multiple lines with different colours/line styles and a legend
    • 4.6.15   Joining the dots
    • 4.6.16   Plotting the size of the smoothing circle around selected particles
    • 4.6.17   Locating a particular particle in the data set
    • 4.6.18   Making sure absolutely all particles are plotted
    • 4.6.19   Plotting in different coordinate systems (e.g. cylindrical coordinates)
    • 4.6.20   Plotting vector components in different coordinate systems
    • 4.6.21   Plotting orbital velocities
    • 4.6.22   Plotting against azimuthal angle/cylindrical radius/etc
    • 4.6.23   Plotting the exact solution to common test problems
    • 4.6.24   Plotting an exact solution from a file
    • 4.6.25   Changing the exact solution line style & colour
    • 4.6.26   Setting the number of points used in an exact solution calculation
    • 4.6.27   Plotting an inset plot of residual errors from an exact solution
  • 4.7  plot (l)imits
    • 4.7.1   Using plot limits which adapt automatically for each new plot
    • 4.7.2   Using adaptive plot limits for the colour bar but not for the coordinates
    • 4.7.3   Setting plot limits manually
    • 4.7.4   Making plot limits relative to a particular particle
    • 4.7.5   Plotting in a comoving reference frame
    • 4.7.6   Setting the origin to correspond to a particular particle
    • 4.7.7   Tracking a particle
    • 4.7.8   Setting the origin to the position of the nth sink particle
    • 4.7.9   Plotting radial plots around sink particles
    • 4.7.10   Automatically adapting plot limits to match aspect ratio of output device
    • 4.7.11   Plotting with log axes.
    • 4.7.12   Plotting the square root, inverse or square of a quantity
    • 4.7.13   Resetting limits for all columns
    • 4.7.14   Restoring all plot limits to their minimum and maximum values in the current dump file
    • 4.7.15   Using a subset of data restricted by parameter range
    • 4.7.16   Plotting only particles with ρ > 10, u > 20 and −0.25 < x < 0.25
  • 4.8  (r)endering options
    • 4.8.1   Changing the number of pixels in a rendered image
    • 4.8.2   Changing the colour scheme
    • 4.8.3   Plotting contours as well as the rendered image
    • 4.8.4   Plotting contours instead of a rendered image
    • 4.8.5   Changing the number of contour levels
    • 4.8.6   Setting the contour levels manually
    • 4.8.7   Adding numeric labels to contours
    • 4.8.8   Adding arbitrary contour labels
    • 4.8.9   Turning the colour bar off/ moving the colour bar label
    • 4.8.10   Changing the style of the colour bar
    • 4.8.11   Using a horizontal colour bar
    • 4.8.12   Using ‘plot-hugging’ colour bars
    • 4.8.13   Using floating/inset colour bars
    • 4.8.14   Plotting ticks on only one side of the colour bar
    • 4.8.15   Changing the text in the colour bar label
    • 4.8.16   Using coloured particles instead of rendering to pixels
    • 4.8.17   Using normalised interpolations
    • 4.8.18   Speeding up the rendering on 3D column integrated plots
    • 4.8.19   Using density weighted interpolation
    • 4.8.20   Selecting and rendering only a subset of the particles
    • 4.8.21   Changing the label used for 3D projection plots
    • 4.8.22   Changing “column density” to “surface density” on 3D plots
    • 4.8.23   Changing the interpolation kernel
  • 4.9  (v)ector plot options
    • 4.9.1   Changing the number of arrows on vector plots
    • 4.9.2   Changing the number of pixels in vector plots
    • 4.9.3   Changing the size of arrows on vector plots
    • 4.9.4   Plotting vector arrows in white instead of black or vice-versa
    • 4.9.5   Turning off the legend for vector plots
    • 4.9.6   Moving the vector plot legend
    • 4.9.7   Plotting stream/fieldlines instead of arrows
    • 4.9.8   Turning arrow heads off for vector plots
    • 4.9.9   Hiding vector arrows where there are no SPH particles
    • 4.9.10   Plotting a vector plot in a cross section slice
    • 4.9.11   Making all arrow the same length (i.e., showing direction only, not magnitude)
  • 4.10  (x) cross section/3D plotting options
    • 4.10.1   Plotting a cross section slice through 3D data
    • 4.10.2   Plotting a cross section line through 2D data
    • 4.10.3   Rotating the particles
    • 4.10.4   Setting the origin about which particles are rotated
    • 4.10.5   Adding 3D perspective
    • 4.10.6   Using 3D surface rendering
    • 4.10.7   Plotting 3D box / 3D axes
    • 4.10.8   Setting up animation sequences
    • 4.10.9   Plotting a sequence of frames rotating a data set through 360 degrees
    • 4.10.10   Plotting a ‘fly-around’ of 3D data
    • 4.10.11   Plotting a flythru of 3D data
    • 4.10.12   Adding a steady zoom sequence to a movie
    • 4.10.13   Adding a steady change of colour bar limits
    • 4.10.14   Adding steady movement of the 3D observer
  • 4.11  Miscellaneous other useful things
    • 4.11.1   Saving plot settings / plot limits to disk
    • 4.11.2   My attempt at in-built help
    • 4.11.3   Keyboard shortcuts to menu options
    • 4.11.4   Exiting splash
• 5  Advanced plotting examples
  • 5.1  Rendered plot of star formation data
  • 5.2  Multi-panelled figure
  • 5.3  Surface rendering
  • 5.4  Using asplash to plot energy vs time plots
  • 5.5  Powerspectrum of 1D data
  • 5.6  Plotting azimuthally-averaged disc surface density and Toomre Q parameter
• 6  Other useful information
  • 6.1  Converting binary dump files to ascii using splash
  • 6.2  Converting SPH data files to 3D gridded data using splash
  • 6.3  Using splash to calculate global quantities as a function of time.
  • 6.4  Using splash to time average a series of files
  • 6.5  Reading/processing data into images without having to answer prompts
  • 6.6  Making frames across multiple processors
  • 6.7  What about boundaries? How does the rendering work near a boundary?
  • 6.8  How does splash handle multiple particle types?
  • 6.9  Using special characters in the plot labels
  • 6.10  Making movies
  • 6.11  Outputting the raw pixel map to a file
• 7  User contributions
• A  Source code overview
• B  Coordinate transformation details
  • B.1   Cylindrical Polar Coordinates
  • B.2   Spherical Polar Coordinates
  • B.3   Toroidal Coordinates
• C  Exact solution details
  • C.1  Errors
  • C.2  Shock tubes (Riemann problem)
    • C.2.1   Riemann solver
  • C.3  Polytrope
  • C.4  Linear wave
  • C.5  Sedov blast wave
  • C.6  Toy stars
    • C.6.1   Static structure
    • C.6.2   Linear solutions
    • C.6.3   Non-linear solution
  • C.7  MHD shock tubes
  • C.8  h vs ρ
• D  Writing your own read_data subroutine