ClimCanvas

Plot atmospheric and oceanic data.

ClimCanvas is a GUI visualization tool that builds basic plots of atmospheric and oceanic data in your browser from netCDF files. Figures can be exported not only as image and video files but also as Python scripts that reproduce them exactly.

Download on GitHub See how to use it

Open source and free / available on GitHub (AGPL-3.0-only)

localhost:8501 — ClimCanvas
FEATURES

No analysis. Just visualization.

ClimCanvas handles only simple aggregation and averaging, plus visualization. Everything else is left in your hands, making the path from data to figure as short as possible.

Load netCDF files

Open a netCDF file and the dimensions and variables are recognized automatically. You can start plotting right away.

Build basic plots in the GUI

Assemble the basic plots used in atmospheric and oceanic research with GUI operations alone, without writing any code.

Instant preview of every change

GUI operations are reflected in the figure immediately, so fine-tuning a figure is easy.

Save figures and animations

Figures can be saved as PNG and other image formats, and figures stepped through time as GIF / MP4 animations.

Script Maker — reproduce the figure exactly

Automatically generates a Python script that reproduces the figure exactly. Move from the GUI straight to publication-quality code.

Locally or on a server

Works with the same UI in your own browser, whether the data are on your PC or on a lab server.

Feature details → Manual (screen items and plotting features) →
GALLERY

Figures that take effort in a script, drawn with ease.

Figures that take many steps to write as a script — an ensemble bundle with summary lines overlaid, or an animation that rotates the globe while stepping through time — can be built with on-screen operations alone. The gallery has examples for each plot mode.

Shaded band between the minimum and maximum of fifty ensemble-member GMST time series, with the ensemble mean (black) and markers labelling major volcanic eruption years
Line bundle Draws 50 member time series at once. Here the range between the maximum and minimum is drawn as a filled band. The internally computed ensemble mean (black) and markers with labels at major volcanic eruption years are added.
Animation Animation of the time evolution of sea surface temperature anomalies (1–30 November 1997) while the globe rotates. Click to enlarge.
See more figures in the gallery →
INSTALL

Install from GitHub

The source code is published in the GitHub repository (ClimCanvas/ClimCanvas). Cloning it always gives you the latest version. Detailed steps and how to get a specific version are on the Install page.

Go to the GitHub repository
Required libraries and optional packages →
$ git clone https://github.com/ClimCanvas/ClimCanvas.git climcanvas
$ cd climcanvas
$ pip install -r requirements.txt
$ streamlit run app.py