[yt-users] yt confusion

[Kathy Eastwood]

Dear yt folks,

I am sorry to keep bothering you, but I have once again confused myself.
Below I reference two bits of yt documentation and one yt cookbook example.

http://yt-project.org/docs/2.6/reference/api/generated/yt.data_objects.data_containers.AMRSphereBase.extract_isocontours.html?highlight=extract_isocontours

This is a function that returns the vertices of marching cube triangles


http://yt-project.org/docs/2.5/api/generated/yt.data_objects.data_containers.AMRSurfaceBase.html

This creates a surface object which also returns vertices of same marching
cubes triangles. (Note that there is an error in the Examples section; the
text there actually refers to the script shown on the previous
extract_isocontours page.)


http://yt-project.org/docs/2.5/cookbook/complex_plots.html#plotting-isocontours

This is an example which uses the output  triangles of the surface object
to make an isocontour plot

So now I am rather confused. If I want to make an isocontour plot, using
the vertices of the triangles resulting from the marching cubes method,
what is the difference between these two? In particular, I have decided
that I would like to output the vertices to a file and then read them in to
some other plotting program. Are the two ways shown exactly equivalent? Is
one to be preferred over the other, particularly if I want to use a sphere
data container as my source? I have not been able to get the .surface to
work with just a sphere data container.

thanks
Kathy

-- 
Kathy DeGioia Eastwood, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Northern Arizona University
Flagstaff, AZ 86011-6010
Ph: 928-523-7159   FX: 928-523-1371
Kathy.Eastwood at nau.edu
deliveries: 602 S. Humphreys St., Bldg 19 Rm 209
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