rwthplots

Matplotlib style sheets, colormaps, and figure utilities for RWTH Aachen University's corporate design palette.

Developed at the Institute for High Voltage Equipment and Grids, Digitalization and Energy Economics (IAEW), RWTH Aachen University.

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What it does

rwthplots brings the official RWTH Aachen corporate design into Matplotlib — so your thesis, paper, and presentation figures are always on-brand without manual rcParams setup.

• Style sheets for every output format: LaTeX/thesis, Word, PowerPoint, Beamer, dark-mode
• 38 colormaps (+ _r reversed variants) — discrete, diverging, sequential, and power-system maps
• Journal presets for IEEE, Nature, Elsevier, Springer, APS, and ACM
• Accessibility utilities — CVD simulation, colour-confusion detection, greedy pick_colors()
• Figure sizing — set_size() with 15 paper/journal presets and golden-ratio height
• Multi-format export — save_figure() writes PDF + PNG + SVG in one call

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Gallery

RWTH colour palette — 13 base colours × 5 tint levels

Line plot with context() and pick_colors(6)

Colormaps — selection of available maps

Climate stripes — Nordrhein-Westfalen 1881–2025, DWD area average

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Installation

pip install rwthplots

Or install the latest development version directly from GitHub:

pip install git+https://github.com/RWTH-IAEW/rwthplots.git

Requires Python ≥ 3.10 and Matplotlib ≥ 3.7.

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Quick start

import rwthplots
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Apply a style — all styles and colormaps are registered on import
with rwthplots.context("rwth-latex", "color.blue", "size.ieee-column"):
    fig, ax = plt.subplots()
    ax.plot(x, y)
    rwthplots.save_figure(fig, "results/fig1", formats=["pdf", "png"])

See the Quick Start guide for a full walkthrough.

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Style sheets

Base styles

Name	Use case
rwthplots.styles.rwth-latex	LaTeX/PGF, thesis, journal
rwthplots.styles.rwth-word	Word, reports
rwthplots.styles.rwth-pptx	PowerPoint
rwthplots.styles.rwth-latex-pptx	LaTeX-rendered text in PPT
rwthplots.styles.rwth-latex-beamer	Beamer slides
rwthplots.styles.rwth-dark	Dark background / screens

Modifier layers

Stack any modifier on top of a base style:

Category	Examples
color/	color.blue, color.orange, color.green, … (16 total)
misc/	misc.grid, misc.colorblind, misc.sans, misc.no-latex, …
journals/	journals.ieee, journals.nature, journals.elsevier, journals.springer, journals.aps, journals.acm
size/	size.ieee-column, size.a4, size.nature-column, … (15 total)

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Colormaps

38 colormaps registered on import (plus _r reversed variants for all). Key maps:

Name	Type	Description
extended_RWTH_discrete	discrete	Full RWTH palette, up to 65 colours (lut=)
continuous_RWTH_discrete	discrete	Continuous coverage, 1–65 colours (lut=)
divergent_RWTH	diverging	Blue → green → red
divergent_bm_RWTH	diverging	Blue – white – magenta
divergent_gy_RWTH	diverging	Green – white – yellow
viridis_RWTH	sequential	Violet → turquoise → may green → yellow
thermal_RWTH	sequential	Black → bordeaux → red → orange → yellow → white (blackbody)
loading_RWTH	sequential	Blue → white → yellow → red → bordeaux (line/transformer loading)
voltage_RWTH	diverging	Red → orange → green → orange → red (voltage deviation)
blue_RWTH	sequential	Blue tint gradient
(+ 12 single-colour gradients)		One per RWTH base colour

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Development

git clone https://github.com/RWTH-IAEW/rwthplots.git
cd rwthplots
uv sync --group dev
uv run python -m pytest -q

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License

MIT — see LICENSE.txt.