These Ipython/Jupyter-notebooks show how to calculate and plot the Michel-Lévy color chart using python. The chart is used to identify minerals in petrographic thin sections. It correlates the interference colors, visible in the microscope, with the thickness an birefringence of the mineral thin section.
This code is based on:
"A revised Michel-Lévy interference colour chart based on first-principles calculations"
Sørensen, Bjørn Eske
European Journal of Mineralogy, 2013, 25. Jg., Nr. 1, S. 5-10
The article is open access, so please read it, if you're interested (http://eurjmin.geoscienceworld.org/content/25/1/5). A Matlab implementation by the original author can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bjorn_Sorensen/publications.
All credit goes to Mr. Sørensen, I'm not affiliated in any way. I just found his work, implemented it in python and made the chart with matplotlib. The goal was to reproduce the results of the article and make them accessible and usable without a matlab license. And I think, the notebook is a better way to present stuff like this.
- Notebook 1/2 explains the calculation and shows how to generate the chart.
- Notebook 2/2 shows some more applications.
- The calculations and two plotting examples are summarized as standalone .py files (in the folder scripts).
- python
- written in python 3.5 and recommended to be used with python 3.
- works with python 2.7
- jupyter notebook
- numpy
- matplotlib
The installation of python with the "Anaconda" distribution is straight forward and platform independent:
- Download Anaconda python at https://www.continuum.io/downloads
- If not already installed, install the necessary packages from the command line:
conda install numpy
conda install notebook
conda install matplotlib
conda install pil
- running the notebook from the command line:
jupyter notebook