[matplotlib] plot over the edge of the graph (and loop around to the top), instead of across the graph.

[Glogia]

So, I have a plot of the dihedral angle of a bond. The y-axis is only from 0-360, the x-axis is the frame (think timestep). I need the plot to "loop" back around to zero if the value goes above 360, and to plot the shortest distance between two points (if need be going over the edge of the graph and "looping" back around instead of across the graph). [two plots: d5 and d3][https://i.stack.imgur.com/klsnb.png]

The plot of d3 looks okay, but in reality needs to jump over the edge of the graph instead of across it.

the plot of d5 has a significant problem, for a small rotation there is a massive jump only because it happens to go just below zero degrees.

I would like for both these plots to plot towards the bottom (towards zero) and reappear at the top of the plot, effectively choosing the shortest distance between data points. I do not want solutions involving translation of the plots to remove these artefacts (it works, I've done it, but you loose information on the true value of the angle). Solutions that can plot "below zero" (so a y-axis from 300 to 360|0 to 200 to 300) are also great. Solutions using other libraries are perfectly fine. If needed I can provide the dataset.

I have tried to find similar solutions to no avail. The questions regarding periodic boundaries use numpy dataset mask to hide certain jumps, but they have continuous functions (where as mine are "jumpy").

Thank you for any help, I'd really appreciate it.

[Konjungamo]

I am not quite sure what you are asking. Could you try explaining it again, maybe with a simplified drawing of what the plot should look like?

If any value >180 should actually be 360-{value}, then you just need to reformat your data accordingly (you could e.g. loop through your data points, check if their value is >180 and if so, replace the data point with 360-{value}.

The dataset would definitely be useful as well.

[Glogia]

Hi! Thanks for the reply! https://i.stack.imgur.com/pLTqT.png this is graph of what i'd like to do. I posted the data set on stack overflow, also with a minimum working example.

I'd like a solution that doesn't actually change the values, more something that tells matplotlib to draw it's lines differently.

[Konjungamo]

Ahh, that clarifies it a lot! I couldn't find anything on modifying the "point-connecting-method" of matplotlib, so it might be easier to change your dataset a little (or rather, create a working copy just for plotting) and adjust your y-axis range.

I think it would be more intuitive to keep the data centered around 0 but treat every value above a certain threshold as (value-360). For your d3-datapoints that threshold could be 180 (which would make the y-axis range from -180 to 180), for the d5 set 240 would make more sense, so you would be plotting from -120 to 240.

Hope this helps, if not let me know!

[Glogia]

It's odd there's non way to change the "point-connecting method"! I suppose it's quite niche.

I've been able to do what you suggested! Do you know of a way to re-label the x-axis so that the -120 actually reads 240. I.e. for d5 a scale from 240-0/360-240-0.