GWBar

A gravitational-wave progressbar template for LaTeX beamer presentations.

Usage

To import and activate the template, run

\usepackage[options]{gwbar}
\setbeamertemplate{frametitle}[gwbar]

For this to work, the .sty and .txt files in this repository have to be either in the same directory as the corresponding LaTeX file or they have to be in a directory where your LaTeX distribution finds them. The location of the .txt can also be given as an argument to the package (called templatefile).

It is possible to use any waveform you want in the presentation. The only requirement for the displaying to work properly is that the values are between $-1$ and $+1$, and that the times are between $0$ and $1$. If you have some GWPy TimeSeries on hand, this preparation can be done using signal_export function in the accompanying python script.

Note: in case the bar looks misaligned in some compiler like Overleaf, this will typically disappear in the exported pdf. I do not know why this happens, but I have experienced it several times. You can confirm that everything is calculated correctly by zooming in on the transitions.

Arguments

Inplace of a separate documentation pdf, the few existing options for the package will be discussed here:

• templatefile: the file used for plotting. Must adhere the TikZ requirements on the plot file function: two colums of equal length, with the first one representing x-data and second one representing y-data. As mentioned in the text, for proper displaying there are constraints on the values in this file.

• leftpadding: starting point of signal on the frame, i.e. spacing between left end of the frame and beginning of the signal (which coincides with the point where the progressbar starts). Default is 0.6\textwidth.

• rightpadding: end point of signal on the frame, i.e. spacing between right end of the frame and end of the signal. Default is 0.1\paperwidth.

• signalheight: height of the plotted signal. By default, the signal will be plotted so that it touches the upper end of the frame (the corresponding option value is "frametitleheight"). To have the signal touch the lower end of the framesubtitle (which will usually be crossed for the default setting), "framesubtitleheight" can be given. It is also possible to pass any other length for a fixed, custom height. Note that the two strings mentioned here should be the most robust options, as they calculate the length on each frame and thus are able to react to things like changes in font size.

  To adjust the height manually in between frames, pass a length variable to signalheight and change the value of this variable accordingly (cf. the examples/signalheight_example file).

• signalupshift: controls how much separation is between the lower end of the frametitle part (upper end of framesubtitle) and the progressbar. Default is 3pt, so that the progressbar does not intersect with the framesubtitle.

• bottompaddingnosubtitle, bottompaddingwithsubtitle: padding applied after the template. This requires two options because it might be desirable to apply different paddings for frames with/without subtitle. The reason to allow for padding at all is that the signal might overlap with the first text row otherwise, which is visually not very pleasing.

• Styling: albeit not being a direct option that can be passed, it is possible to change the progressbar style by editing the corresponding TikZ styles:

  \tikzset{<style name>/.style={<style options>}}

  (cf. the examples/style_example file). Styles used by the template are gwbar@linelayerone, gwbar@linelayertwo, gwbar@fillinglayerone, and gwbar@fillinglayertwo.

Examples

To see how this beamertemplate looks like and how it can be used, have a look at the examples folder in this repository.

Plans

• Figure out a better syntax for bottompadding option

• Make the whole thing faster. Unfortunately, TikZ is inherently slow with plotting the potentially large number of points. Since we rely on a TikZ picture for every single frame, this can result in a rather slow compilation.

If you have any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to tell me about them!