This Python package is allows you to compute the scattering properties of airborne spherical particles. This is useful for remote sensing of clouds (and aerosols) in the atmosphere. Mie calculations are in FORTRAN codes written by Michael Mishchenko. This package allows you to run Michael's calculations from Python. I have also provided some documentation and argument checking for these routines.

The output is given as an array of generalized spherical function coefficients (scaled by the extinction), but the output arrays have a method called angle_eval which returns the scattering matrix at specified angles.

(optional) Install the "Anaconda python distribution" by continuum analytics.

Check out this repository:

$ git clone https://github.com/wgm2111/wgm-mie-scattering

Change to the repository directory and build FORTRAN source code

$ python setup.py distribute

Run the example ipython notebook

$ ipython notebook 

For a system wide install use:

  $ python setup.py install

Python with numpy, scipy, f2py, and some other common packages. The Anaconda python distribution is good, and will have all the necessary third party packages.

Fortran source code thanks to Michael Mishchenko: http://www.giss.nasa.gov/staff/mmishchenko/

Python wrapping thanks to Will Martin: https://github.com/wgm2111/wgm-mie-scattering