Interactive tools

ERLab’s interactive applications cover the complete workflow from exploratory slicing to managing large batches of ImageTool windows. The entries below highlight where to start depending on your background—whether you are coming from Igor Pro’s original Image Tool or learning ARPES analysis from scratch in Python.

• ImageTool is the primary GUI for inspecting multidimensional xarray.DataArray objects. It includes cursor math, colormap controls, destructive and non-destructive edits, and hooks to ARPES-specific tools.

• ImageTool manager sits on top of ImageTool and provides long-running project management: load queues, window linking, archiving, notebook synchronization, and workspace persistence.

• Specialized helpers such as ktool (momentum conversion), dtool (derivative plotting), and the data explorer integrate with both ImageTool and the manager for targeted tasks.

Additional interactive tools, including conversion utilities and experiment planning aids, are described in Other interactive tools. Each tool can be launched directly or from ImageTool’s context menus, and the manager can keep them alongside ImageTool windows when you need a shared workspace.

Tip

A recommended workflow is to perform data loading and analysis within a Jupyter notebook, while using the ImageTool manager to handle interactive visualization.

This approach lets you take advantage of ImageTool’s interactive features while maintaining a reproducible analysis process in your notebook. For details on integrating ImageTool manager with Jupyter notebooks, see Notebook integration.

Table of Contents

• ImageTool
  • Key capabilities
  • Launching ImageTool
  • Interface tour
  • Working with dimensions and coordinates
  • Slicing, binning, and linking
  • Cursor control and context menus
  • Color and normalization
  • Editing and filtering data
  • Regions of Interest (ROIs)
  • Exporting, automation, and preferences
  • Keyboard shortcuts
• ImageTool Manager
  • Why use the manager?
  • Starting the manager
  • Opening and replacing ImageTool windows
  • Navigating and organizing tools
  • Workspaces
  • Built-in explorer and console
  • Notebook integration
  • Automation APIs
  • Installing as a standalone application
• Other interactive tools
  • ktool
  • dtool
  • goldtool
  • ftool
  • restool
  • meshtool
  • Data explorer
  • BZPlotter
  • Notebook shortcuts
• Configuration