Peak Finding in Python

Learn how to find peaks and valleys on datasets in Python

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Imports¶

The tutorial below imports Pandas, and SciPy.

In [1]:

import pandas as pd
from scipy.signal import find_peaks

Import Data¶

To start detecting peaks, we will import some data on milk production by month:

In [2]:

import plotly.graph_objects as go
import pandas as pd

milk_data = pd.read_csv('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/plotly/datasets/master/monthly-milk-production-pounds.csv')
time_series = milk_data['Monthly milk production (pounds per cow)']

fig = go.Figure(data=go.Scatter(
    y = time_series,
    mode = 'lines'
))

fig.show()

Peak Detection¶

We need to find the x-axis indices for the peaks in order to determine where the peaks are located.

In [3]:

import plotly.graph_objects as go
import pandas as pd
from scipy.signal import find_peaks

milk_data = pd.read_csv('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/plotly/datasets/master/monthly-milk-production-pounds.csv')
time_series = milk_data['Monthly milk production (pounds per cow)']

indices = find_peaks(time_series)[0]

fig = go.Figure()
fig.add_trace(go.Scatter(
    y=time_series,
    mode='lines+markers',
    name='Original Plot'
))

fig.add_trace(go.Scatter(
    x=indices,
    y=[time_series[j] for j in indices],
    mode='markers',
    marker=dict(
        size=8,
        color='red',
        symbol='cross'
    ),
    name='Detected Peaks'
))

fig.show()

Only Highest Peaks¶

We can attempt to set our threshold so that we identify as many of the highest peaks that we can.

In [4]:

import plotly.graph_objects as go
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
from scipy.signal import find_peaks

milk_data = pd.read_csv('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/plotly/datasets/master/monthly-milk-production-pounds.csv')
time_series = milk_data['Monthly milk production (pounds per cow)']

indices = find_peaks(time_series, threshold=20)[0]

fig = go.Figure()
fig.add_trace(go.Scatter(
    y=time_series,
    mode='lines+markers',
    name='Original Plot'
))

fig.add_trace(go.Scatter(
    x=indices,
    y=[time_series[j] for j in indices],
    mode='markers',
    marker=dict(
        size=8,
        color='red',
        symbol='cross'
    ),
    name='Detected Peaks'
))

fig.show()

What About Dash?¶

Dash is an open-source framework for building analytical applications, with no Javascript required, and it is tightly integrated with the Plotly graphing library.

Learn about how to install Dash at https://dash.plot.ly/installation.

Everywhere in this page that you see fig.show(), you can display the same figure in a Dash application by passing it to the figure argument of the Graph component from the built-in dash_core_components package like this:

import plotly.graph_objects as go # or plotly.express as px
fig = go.Figure() # or any Plotly Express function e.g. px.bar(...)
# fig.add_trace( ... )
# fig.update_layout( ... )

from dash import Dash, dcc, html

app = Dash()
app.layout = html.Div([
    dcc.Graph(figure=fig)
])

app.run(debug=True, use_reloader=False)  # Turn off reloader if inside Jupyter