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matplotlibprojectioncartopy

Drawing circles with Cartopy in NorthPolarStereo projection

I would like to draw circles in Cartopy in NorthPolarStereo projections, providing the center and radius in lat,lon units.

Similar and excellent questions and answers are available for Basemap here, and for Cartopy in Ortographic projection here. However, I would like to use the NorthPolarStereo in Cartopy. Trying the latter approach, just changing the projection makes the circle fixed in the North Pole, ignoring the coordinates you give for its center.

Any ideas on how to draw circles in Cartopy using NorthPolarStereo projection, providing its center and radius in lat,lon untis?

import numpy as np
import cartopy.crs as ccrs
import cartopy.feature as cfeature
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.patches as mpatches

# example: draw circle with 45 degree radius around the North pole
lat = 72 
lon = 100
r = 20

# Define the projection used to display the circle:
proj = ccrs.NorthPolarStereo(central_longitude=lon)


def compute_radius(ortho, radius_degrees):
    phi1 = lat + radius_degrees if lat <= 0 else lat - radius_degrees
    _, y1 = ortho.transform_point(lon, phi1, ccrs.PlateCarree())
    return abs(y1)

# Compute the required radius in projection native coordinates:
r_ortho = compute_radius(proj, r)

# We can now compute the correct plot extents to have padding in degrees:
pad_radius = compute_radius(proj, r + 5)

# define image properties
width = 800
height = 800
dpi = 96
resolution = '50m'

# create figure
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(width / dpi, height / dpi), dpi=dpi)
ax = fig.add_subplot(1, 1, 1, projection=proj)

ax.set_xlim([-pad_radius, pad_radius])
ax.set_ylim([-pad_radius, pad_radius])
ax.imshow(np.tile(np.array([[cfeature.COLORS['water'] * 255]], dtype=np.uint8), [2, 2, 1]), origin='upper', transform=ccrs.PlateCarree(), extent=[-180, 180, -180, 180])
ax.add_feature(cfeature.NaturalEarthFeature('physical', 'land', resolution, edgecolor='black', facecolor=cfeature.COLORS['land']))
ax.add_patch(mpatches.Circle(xy=[lon, lat], radius=r_ortho, color='red', alpha=0.3, transform=proj, zorder=30))

plt.show()

Circle is fixed at North Pole, it won't move enter image description here

Solution

  • The coordinates of the circle's center must be the projection coordinates. So, a coordinate transformation is required.

    Here is the relevant code:

    # Note: lat = 72, lon = 100
# proj = ccrs.NorthPolarStereo(central_longitude=lon)

projx1, projy1 = proj.transform_point(lon, lat, ccrs.Geodetic()) #get proj coord of (lon,lat)
ax.add_patch(mpatches.Circle(xy=[projx1, projy1], radius=r_ortho, color='red', \
                            alpha=0.3, transform=proj, zorder=30))

    The output plot will be:

    enter image description here

    Alternate Solution

    Since the projection in use is conformal, a Tissot Indicatrix plot on it will always be a circle. So that, the circle you need can be represented with an Indicatrix. Here is the code you can try:

    ax.tissot(rad_km=r_ortho/1000, lons=lon, lats=lat, n_samples=48, color='green', \
      alpha=0.3, zorder=31)

    Edit 1

    Code to replace the errorneous function:

    import pyproj

def compute_radius(val_degree):
    """
    Compute surface distance in meters for a given angular value in degrees
    """
    geod84 = pyproj.Geod(ellps='WGS84')
    lat0, lon0 = 0, 90
    _, _, dist_m = geod84.inv(lon0, lat0,  lon0+val_degree, lat0)
    return dist_m

compute_radius(1)  # get: 111319.49079327357 (meters)