praxis-sci 1.0.0

Scientific data analysis and publication-quality plotting for 50+ characterisation techniques.

Praxis

Scientific data analysis and publication-quality plotting for 50+ characterisation techniques.

Load raw lab data in 17+ formats, run technique-aware analysis, and produce journal-ready figures in nine journal styles -- all from a few lines of Python. Praxis (Greek praxis: practice, action) handles the boring parts of every characterisation workflow so you can focus on the science.

Install

pip install praxis-sci

Or install the development version from source:

git clone https://github.com/zmtsikriteas/praxis.git
cd praxis
pip install -e .

30-second example

Every technique ships with a built-in sample dataset, so you can try Praxis without supplying your own data:

from praxis.core.loader import load_sample
from praxis.core.utils import apply_style
from praxis.core.plotter import plot_data
from praxis.techniques.xrd import analyse_xrd

df = load_sample("xrd")                                       # built-in Si pattern
results = analyse_xrd(df["two_theta_deg"], df["intensity"],
                      wavelength="Cu_Ka")                     # peak ID + Scherrer

apply_style("nature")                                          # 89 mm column, Arial 7pt
fig, ax = plot_data(df["two_theta_deg"], df["intensity"],
                    xlabel=r"$2\theta$ (deg)",
                    ylabel="Intensity (a.u.)")
fig.savefig("xrd.png", dpi=300)

list_samples() prints all 26 available datasets (one per technique).

Gallery

Each tile is a complete figure produced by Praxis: real journal style, real analysis output, real annotations.

XRD with peak labels · Nature	Tensile test, E and UTS · Elsevier	Gaussian fit + 95% CI · RSC
Raw / FFT / filtered · IEEE	Multi-panel figure · Science	2D contour map · Springer
EIS Nyquist plot · ACS	DSC: Tg / Tc / Tm · Wiley	Ferromagnetic M-H loop · MDPI
Raman of silicon · Nature	UV-Vis Au plasmon · Wiley	Cyclic voltammetry · IEEE

All 12 figures are reproduced by python examples/generate_examples.py.

Features

• 22 technique modules with domain-specific analysis (Scherrer / Williamson-Hall for XRD, Tg / Tm / crystallinity for DSC, Tauc / Beer-Lambert for spectroscopy, Shirley / peak fits for XPS, equivalent-circuit fitting for EIS, capacity fade / dQ-dV for battery cycling, and more).
• 17+ data formats auto-detected: CSV, TSV, TXT, Excel, JSON, .xy, .dat, .asc, .spe, JCAMP-DX, HDF5, MATLAB .mat, Bruker .brml, PANalytical .xrdml (zipped and plain), Gamry .dta, Bio-Logic .mpr (via optional galvani), clipboard. Smart handling of BOM-marked files, UTF-16, and European decimal-comma data.
• 15+ plot types including line, scatter, bar, errorbar, histogram, box / violin, contour, heatmap, polar, waterfall, ternary, Smith chart, broken axis, multi-panel.
• 9 journal styles matching column widths, fonts, and DPI requirements: Nature, Science, ACS, Elsevier, Wiley, RSC, Springer, IEEE, MDPI.
• Colourblind-safe palettes by default: Okabe-Ito, Tol, uchu (perceptually uniform).
• Reproducible exports in PNG / SVG / PDF / EPS / TIFF, each with a .meta.json sidecar capturing the parameters used.
• Batch processing of hundreds of files with a single pipeline; analysis templates save and replay pipelines on new data.
• 26 built-in sample datasets so every cookbook recipe is copy-paste runnable.

Supported techniques

Category	Techniques
Structural	XRD, SAXS / SANS / WAXS
Microscopy	SEM (grain size, porosity), EDS / EDX, AFM (roughness, profiles)
Spectroscopy	FTIR, Raman, UV-Vis, XPS, NMR, mass spectrometry
Thermal	DSC, TGA, DMA
Mechanical	Tensile, compression, nanoindentation, Vickers / Rockwell / Brinell hardness
Electrical	I-V, C-V, EIS, four-point probe, solar-cell J-V
Battery	Galvanostatic cycling (capacity, fade, CE), dQ / dV, rate capability
Magnetic	VSM / SQUID M-H loops, Curie temperature, Langevin fit
Porosity	BET surface area, BJH pore distribution
Chromatography	GC, HPLC, IC, SEC
Dielectric	Permittivity, loss tangent, Cole-Cole, Curie-Weiss
Piezoelectric	P-E loops, S-E butterfly, impedance resonance
Thermal transport	Laser flash, steady-state conductivity

Documentation

Doc	Contents
Cookbook	50+ worked examples, one per technique: data, analysis, plot, expected output
Workflows	12 complete multi-step pipelines from raw data to publication figure
Plot types	All 15+ plot types with runnable code
Techniques	Quick reference for every supported technique with expected data columns
Journal styles	Column widths, fonts, DPI for 9 journals
Colour palettes	Okabe-Ito, Tol, uchu palettes with hex codes

Use as a Claude Code skill

Praxis was built to also work as a Claude Code skill. Sync the repository to your Claude skills folder and you get natural-language slash commands:

/praxis:plot         Create any plot from data
/praxis:fit          Curve fitting (10+ models + custom equations)
/praxis:peaks        Peak detection, fitting, deconvolution
/praxis:baseline     Baseline correction (polynomial, ALS, Shirley, SNIP)
/praxis:fft          FFT, power spectrum, filtering
/praxis:smooth       Savitzky-Golay, Gaussian, median, Whittaker
/praxis:stats        Descriptive stats, t-test, ANOVA, regression
/praxis:batch        Process multiple files with the same pipeline
/praxis:template     Save / load analysis pipelines
/praxis:report       Auto-generate analysis summary
/praxis:xrd          XRD analysis (Scherrer, Williamson-Hall)
/praxis:impedance    EIS (Nyquist, Bode, circuit fitting)
/praxis:dsc          DSC / TGA analysis
/praxis:mechanical   Stress-strain, DMA
/praxis:spectro      FTIR / Raman / UV-Vis
/praxis:xps          XPS peak fitting
/praxis:style        Set journal style
/praxis:export       Publication-quality export
/praxis:help         Show all commands

See SKILL.md for the full skill definition.

Development

git clone https://github.com/zmtsikriteas/praxis.git
cd praxis
pip install -e .[test]
python -m pytest tests/ -v

134 tests run on every push to main on Python 3.10, 3.11, and 3.12 (see Actions).

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for setup, conventions, the five-step recipe for adding a new technique, and how to add a new file format. New techniques and vendor file-format parsers are the highest-leverage contributions.

What's changed and what's coming: CHANGELOG.md.

Cite

If you use Praxis in research, please cite it via the Cite this repository button on the GitHub page (or see CITATION.cff).

License

MIT.