piScope

πScope

πScope is a Python-based workbench for data analysis and modeling.

Goals of piScope include:

Data browsing (scope) application for MDSplus data system (www.mdsplus.org)
Lego blocks for gluing up large simulation codes using Python
User frontend platform for Petra-M (MFEM based finite element simulation).

For the above purposes, πScope is equipped with:

a data analysis environment (= Python shell, editor, data structure browser, and Matplotlib figure)
various GUI components to work with matplotlib-based figures, which allow users to:
save/load a figure as a figure file.
edit artists using GUI palette for plot, contour, image, triplots and so on.
change panel layout via an interactive layout editor.
cut/paste of plot, axes, or an entire page.
export data from plot to Python shell with one click.
interactively annotate figure using text, arrow, lines, etc.
draw 3D (OpenGL) in a Matplotlib canvas.

πScope is also used for Petra-M finite element analysis platform built on MFEM.

Plotting commands

The following plotting commands are available. These commands are preloaded in the Python shell inside piScope GUI. From a script, users need to load them:

from ifigure.interactive import *

Inside a live piScope GUI process, plotting calls use the GUI interactive backend.
Outside piScope GUI, plotting calls use the no-GUI client backend. The backend launches piScope automatically if it is in an interactive session. Otherwise, it needs to be launched by calling launch().

Figure and axes management

figure, showpage, cla, cls, clf, subplot, isec, isection
addpage, delpage, title, suptitle, xlabel, ylabel, zlabel, clabel
xlog, ylog, zlog, clog, xlinear, ylinear, zlinear, clinear
xlim, ylim, zlim, clim, xauto, yauto, zauto, cauto
twinx, twiny, cbar, view, threed, lighting

2D plotting

plot, oplot, loglog, semilogx, semilogy, timetrace, plotc
scatter, hist, errorbar, oerrorbar, errorbarc
triplot, ispline, contour, contourf, quiver, quiver3d
image, specgram, spec, tripcolor, tricontour, tricontourf
axline, axlinec, axspan, axspanc, fill, fill_between, fill_betweenx
text, figtext, arrow, figarrow, legend

3D plotting

surf, surface, revolve, solid, trisurf

Annotation and output

property, savefig, savedata

Install

 pip install piScope

 or
 
 git clone git@github.com:piScope/piScope.git; cd piScope
 pip install .

LLM sessions (experimental)

To enable an LLM agent to control a persistent piScope session, copy the entire plotting skill into that agent's user skill directory:

cp -a skills/piscope-plotting <LLM_SKILLS_DIR>/

The skill includes its instructions and scripts for launching piScope and sending commands to its server.

Directories

../python/ifigure core program
../python/ifigure/example examples
../bin/ scripts to run πScope
../example/ example data to look in πScope

Reference

(S Shiraiwa, T Fredian, J Hillairet, J Stillerman, "πScope: Python-based scientific workbench with MDSplus data visualization tool", Fusion Engineering and Design 112, 835 (2016) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.fusengdes.2016.06.050)

Metadata

Release files for piScope 26.8.29

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for piScope 26.8.29
File	Size	Uploaded
piscope-26.8.29.tar.gz	1.5 MB	Aug 31, 2026	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for piScope 26.8.29
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
piscope-26.8.29-py3-none-any.whl 1.8 MB Aug 31, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 3.3 MB

Release files / piscope-26.8.29.tar.gz

Download URL	piscope-26.8.29.tar.gz
Size	1.5 MB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`8fc0f2530e887e365d1e1f61bebb3eccfa7d5a25a3b8069ad7db7060b7ad9bcf`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`bd9bdf76de507101abedc794c7f8dcf753d6ec3a58f962820f97583199ddb54d`
Upload date	Aug 31, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.12.3`

Release files / piscope-26.8.29-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	piscope-26.8.29-py3-none-any.whl
Size	1.8 MB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`4d4ce87a52c1718016d2d59851629d37174bd9eec6c0950f704633b2e01cae45`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`3e9b6eb85fada1f84d49ae35055b556842751df473872a9945ad9afd64ad7e7a`
Upload date	Aug 31, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.12.3`