name

scientific-figure-making

description

Covers publication-ready matplotlib figures for academic papers, slides, and reports—bars, trends, scatter, heatmaps, and multi-panel layouts—with this repository’s house style, print/vector export conventions, and parity with figures4papers demos. Use when the user is finalizing or creating such figures in matplotlib. Do not use for interactive dashboards or web viz (Plotly, Altair, Bokeh), exploratory-only plots without a publication target, dominant 3D or geographic mapping, or Illustrator/Figma-first infographic workflows.

Scientific figure making

Open references/ only as needed; do not preload every file. Start from the table below, then follow links inside the document you opened (and into figure_* code via references/demos.md) instead of loading the full reference set up front.

When to load this skill

Matplotlib figures for papers, slides, or reports that must match this repo’s publication look (fonts, palette, spines, legends, export).
Requests involving grouped bars, trend lines, heatmaps, multi-panel grids, or PDF/SVG/high-DPI output in a scientific-figure context.
References to figures4papers figure_* projects or “same style as the repo figures.”

When not to load

Plotly, Altair, Bokeh, or other interactive / web-first plotting.
EDA-only plots where seaborn or pandas is enough until there is a publication target.
Primary workflow is 3D, GIS, or non-matplotlib tooling.
Illustrator / Figma–first layout or infographic (not matplotlib data plots).

Related files

File	Open when
references/tutorials.md	End-to-end walkthroughs (bar, trends, heatmap)
references/api.md	Function signatures, `PALETTE`, validation rules
references/common-patterns.md	Layout patterns, legend panel, print-safe bars
references/design-theory.md	Typography, export policy, palette rationale
references/demos.md	Canonical `figure_*` demo links in figures4papers