gadfly: A pandas-based Framework for Analyzing GADGET Simulation Data

Abstract

We present the first public release (v0.1) of the open-source GADGET Dataframe Library: gadfly. The aim of this package is to leverage the capabilities of the broader python scientific computing ecosystem by providing tools for analyzing simulation data from the astrophysical simulation codes GADGET and GIZMO using pandas, a thoroughly documented, open-source library providing high-performance, easy-to-use data structures that is quickly becoming the standard for data analysis in python. Gadfly is a framework for analyzing particle-based simulation data stored in the HDF5 format using pandas DataFrames. The package enables efficient memory management, includes utilities for unit handling, coordinate transformations, and parallel batch processing, and provides highly optimized routines for visualizing smoothed-particle hydrodynamics (SPH) datasets.