Observational Data

The functionality in this library is generally for dealing with data that comes out of VELOCIraptor, and as such can only interface with a limited number of simulation datasets. Frequently, it is useful to over-plot data from, for example, other simulation groups, or even (_gasp_) observational data. Here, “observational data” actually refers to comparison data of any kind.

Dealing with this observational data is usually a mess of scattered .csv files. Here, we describe an interface that allows for structured metadata to be created, and for easily usable files containing this observational data to be saved to disk and recovered for future use. The overarching abstraction here is a python object (of type velociraptor.observations.objects.ObservationalData) that can be written to or read from file with HDF5 as the backing format.

This data can also be used with the velociraptor.autoplotter functionality.

• File Format
  • HDF5 Fields
• Using “Observational Data” Files
  • Example
• Creating Data Files
  • General Rules
  • Example
  • Multi-Redshift Data