Plotting Antenna Positions (plotants)

This task is a simple plotting interface to produce plots of the antenna positions (taken from the ANTENNA sub-table of the MS).  The location of the antennas in the MS will be plotted with X-toward local east; Y-toward local north.

The inputs to plotants are:

#In CASA
#plotants :: Plot the antenna distribution in the local reference frame:
vis                =         ''        #  Name of input visibility file (MS)
figfile            =         ''        #  Save the plotted figure to this file

Supported format extensions for the figfile include emf, eps, pdf, png, ps, raw, rgba, svg, and svgz, depending on which python modules are installed on your system.  Formats currently available in a downloaded CASA package include all but emf (enhanced metafile).

The antennas will be plotted in a plotter window as shown below:

  • The name of each antenna is shown next to its respective location.
  • You can zoom in by pressing the 'magnifier' icon (bottom, fifth from left) and making a rectangular region with the mouse. Press the 'home' icon (left most icon) to remove zoom.
  • A hard-copy of this plot can be obtained by pressing the button on the right at the bottom of the display. This produces a png format file.

Type Figure
ID examination-fig-plotants
Caption Output of plotants for a VLA dataset. It is possible to zoom into the plot with the magnifying glass, which also allows tracking positions on the plot.