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Claude Development Prompt: Arcsecond Tick Label Decimal Placement

Type: feature Target: PyAutoArray Difficulty: large Autonomy: supervised Priority: normal Status: formalised

You are working in the PyAutoLens / PyAutoArray plotting codebase.

Goal

Add a boolean option to the plotting API that changes arcsecond tick labels from the current format:

0.45"
-2.2"
3.1"

to:

0."45
-2."2
3."1

This should be implemented inside the plotting source code, not by user scripts editing Matplotlib tick labels after a figure has been drawn.

Requirements

  • Add a clearly named boolean option, for example arcsec_after_decimal, defaulting to False so existing plots are unchanged.
  • The option should be available from high-level plotting functions such as autolens.plot.plot_array(...).
  • When enabled, only labels that are already formatted as arcseconds should change.
  • Preserve all existing tick locations, precision choices, rotation, font size, and other style settings.
  • Do not change colorbars or non-arcsecond axis labels.
  • Add focused tests or examples covering:
    • default behavior remains 0.45";
    • enabled behavior becomes 0."45;
    • negative values become -2."2;
    • integer-like labels without a decimal either remain unchanged or use a documented behavior.

Suggested Implementation Direction

Find where axis tick labels are formatted in the AutoArray / PyAutoLens plotting stack. Start from:

  • autolens.plot.plot_array(...)
  • autoarray.plot.plot_array(...)
  • the axis / tick helper functions used by autoarray.plot.utils
  • any config-driven tick-label formatter that appends the arcsecond symbol

Implement this as close as possible to the tick-label formatter that appends ", rather than modifying labels after plotting. Ideally the formatter should receive the boolean and place the arcsecond marker either at the end or immediately after the decimal point.

Acceptance Criteria

This example should work without post-processing:

import autolens.plot as aplt

aplt.plot_array(
    array=array,
    title="VIS Data",
    arcsec_after_decimal=True,
)

and should produce axis labels like:

-2."2   0."45   3."1

The same call without arcsec_after_decimal=True should preserve the current default labels.

Notes

This request comes from paper-figure generation, where editing Matplotlib labels after aplt.plot_array works but creates fragile layout and whitespace side effects. The source-level option should keep normal PyAutoLens layout behavior intact.