N-dimensional datasets (astropy.nddata)

Introduction

astropy.nddata provides the NDData class and related tools to manage n-dimensional array-based data (e.g. CCD images, IFU data, grid-based simulation data, ...). This is more than just numpy.ndarray objects, because it provides metadata that cannot be easily provided by a single array.

Note

The NDData class is still under development, and support for WCS and units is not yet implemented.

Getting started

An NDData object can be instantiated by passing it an n-dimensional Numpy array:

>>> import numpy as np
>>> from astropy.nddata import NDData
>>> array = np.zeros((12, 12, 12))  # a 3-dimensional array with all zeros
>>> ndd = NDData(array)

This object has a few attributes in common with Numpy:

>>> ndd.ndim
3
>>> ndd.shape
(12, 12, 12)
>>> ndd.dtype
dtype('float64')

The underlying Numpy array can be accessed via the data attribute:

>>> ndd.data
array([[[ 0., 0., 0., ...
...

Values can be masked using the mask attribute, which should be a boolean Numpy array with the same dimensions as the data, e.g.:

>>> ndd.mask = ndd.data > 0.9

A mask value of True indicates a value that should be ignored, while a mask value of False indicates a valid value.

Similarly, attributes are available to store generic meta-data, flags, and uncertainties, and the NDData class includes methods to combine datasets with arithmetic operations (which include uncertainties propagation). These are described in NDData overview.

Using nddata

• NDData overview
  • Initializing
  • Mask
  • Flags
  • Uncertainties
  • Arithmetic
  • Meta-data
  • Converting to Numpy arrays
• Subclassing NDData and NDUncertainty
  • Subclassing NDUncertainty

Reference/API

astropy.nddata Module

The astropy.nddata subpackage provides the NDData class and related tools to manage n-dimensional array-based data (e.g. CCD images, IFU Data, grid-based simulation data, ...). This is more than just numpy.ndarray objects, because it provides metadata that cannot be easily provided by a single array.

Classes

Conf	Configuration parameters for astropy.nddata.
FlagCollection(*args, **kwargs)	The purpose of this class is to provide a dictionary for containing arrays of flags for the NDData class.
IncompatibleUncertaintiesException	This exception should be used to indicate cases in which uncertainties with two different classes can not be propagated.
MissingDataAssociationException	This exception should be used to indicate that an uncertainty instance has not been associated with a parent NDData object.
NDData(data[, uncertainty, mask, flags, ...])	A Superclass for array-based data in Astropy.
NDUncertainty	This is the base class for uncertainty classes used with NDData.
StdDevUncertainty([array, copy])	A class for standard deviation uncertainties