Plot Ampliconstats

plot-ampliconstats

Perl plotting helper for samtools ampliconstats. It consumes an ampliconstats table and writes a prefix-based set of gnuplot scripts, PNG figures, and an index.html gallery.

Quick Start

• Command: plot-ampliconstats prefix [FILE]
• Local executable: /home/vimalinx/miniforge3/envs/bio/bin/plot-ampliconstats
• Input contract: reads samtools ampliconstats-style data from FILE or stdin if FILE is omitted

When To Use This Tool

• Visualizing amplicon statistics from samtools ampliconstats output
• Generating heatmaps and graphs for amplicon coverage analysis
• Producing prefix-named PNG panels and an HTML gallery for multi-sample reports
• Adjusting plot sizing, paging, orientation, thumbnail generation, and read-depth scaling

Common Patterns

# 1) Plot from an existing ampliconstats table
plot-ampliconstats run1 stats.txt

# 2) Stream directly from stdin
samtools ampliconstats ... | plot-ampliconstats run1

# 3) Tune layout and create thumbnails
plot-ampliconstats -orient v -page 48 -thumbnails -thumb-size 160 run1 stats.txt

Recommended Workflow

1. Generate a valid ampliconstats table first, then choose a writable output prefix.
2. Decide whether you want horizontal or vertical layouts and whether large cohorts need -page limits.
3. Run the plotter and inspect both the *.png figures and the generated index.html.
4. Re-run with adjusted -size, -size2, -size3, or -depth-max if the default panels are cramped or clipped.

Guardrails

• plot-ampliconstats --help works, but --version is not a real metadata flag: it prints Unknown option: version before the usage text.
• The script requires gnuplot 5.0 or later. In this environment a smoke test failed immediately with gnuplot: No such file or directory.
• Prefix controls many output names, not just one file. Source inspection shows outputs such as prefix-combined-depth.png, prefix-heat-reads-*.png, prefix-*.gp, and index.html.
• If FILE is omitted the script reads stdin. That makes it stream-friendly, but also easy to hang if the upstream producer never terminates.
• The script exposes an undocumented-but-real --index-only switch in GetOptions; do not rely on it without testing because it is not listed in the built-in usage text.