plot_representation

Plot the representation of parameter values on a map

This recipe uses matplotlib and matplotlib.basemap to plot color-coded datapoint numbers for languages in a CLDF dataset on a geographical map.

Usage

Requirements on Ubuntu or Debian Linux systems:

Install the following deb packages:

apt-get install libgeo-proj4-perl libgeos-3.4.2 libgeos++-dev

and python packages:

pip install numpy
pip install matplotlib
pip install pyproj
pip install pycldf
pip install pyglottolog

To install mpl_toolkits.basemap:

export GEOS_DIR=/usr
curl -O -J -L https://github.com/matplotlib/basemap/archive/v1.1.0.tar.gz
tar -xzvf basemap-1.1.0.tar.gz
cd basemap-1.1.0/
python setup.py install

If no geo coordinates are available in the CLDF dataset, the script tries to lookup coordinates in Glottolog. This is done using pyglottolog, using the data in a local clone or export of clld/glottolog.

The script is run from the commandline using the following syntax:

$ python plot_representation.py --glottolog-repos PATH/TO/CLLD/GLOTTOLOG PATH/TO/DATASET/*-metadata.json OUTPUT.[png|svg]

Example

This recipe can be used to visualize the infamously sparse matrix of WALS datapoints

with the darker dots corresponding to WALS 100 and 200 language samples

Acknowledgements

Thanks to @Anaphory for contributing this recipe.