Unit Conversion Utilities

The Unit class provides several convenience functions for developers of PyPlate.

convert_from

To convert a float quantity from one unit to another, use the convert_from function:

>>> print(Unit.convert_from(substance=water, quantity=1, from_unit='mol', to_unit='mL'))
18.0153

>>> print(Unit.convert_from(substance=water, quantity=18.0153, from_unit='g', to_unit='mol'))
1.0

This function should be the most used function for converting between units.
config.moles_storage_unit or config.volume_storage_unit can be passed as from_unit to convert from the internal storage unit.

convert

convert is a wrapper for convert_from that automatically parses a quantity string into a float and unit.

>>> print(Unit.convert(substance=water, quantity='1 mol', to_unit='mL'))
18.0153

convert_from_storage

Moles and volumes are stored internally in units as defined in pyplate.yaml.

Moles are stored in moles_storage_unit (default: umol)
Volumes are stored in volume_storage_unit (default: uL)
Activity units are stored in ‘U’

Use the convert_from_storage function to convert these values to a desired prefix:

>>> print(Unit.convert_from_storage(value=1, unit='mL'))
0.001

>>> print(Unit.convert_from_storage(value=1, unit='mol'))
1e-06

convert_to_storage

Use the convert_to_storage function to convert a quantity to the internal storage unit:

>>> print(Unit.convert_to_storage(value=1, unit='mL'))
1000.0

>>> print(Unit.convert_to_storage(value=1, unit='mol'))
1000000.0

convert_from_storage_to_standard_format

If you have a substance or a container and a storage quantity, you can convert it to a standard format (liquids and containers as liters, solids as grams, enzymes as activity units) using the convert_from_storage_to_standard_format function:

This automatically scales the quantity to a human readable format. It will return 18.015 mL instead of 0.018015 L.
The return values are rounded in accordance with precisions in pyplate.yaml.
These examples assume the default configuration of moles_storage_unit and volume_storage_unit as umol and uL respectively.

>>> print(Unit.convert_from_storage_to_standard_format(what=water, quantity=1e6))
(18.015, 'mL')

>>> print(Unit.convert_from_storage_to_standard_format(what=NaCl, quantity=1e6))
(58.443, 'g')

>>> print(Unit.convert_from_storage_to_standard_format(what=Amylase, quantity=1))
(1, 'U')

>>> print(Unit.convert_from_storage_to_standard_format(what=salt_water, quantity=1))
(1, 'uL')

get_human_readable_unit

Given a value and a unit, scales the value to a human readable format.

It does not round the value.

>>> print(Unit.get_human_readable_unit(value=1e-6, unit='L'))
(1.0, 'uL')

>>> print(Unit.get_human_readable_unit(value=1e-3, unit='mol'))
(1.0, 'mmol')

>>> print(Unit.get_human_readable_unit(value=.123456789, unit='g'))
(123.456789, 'mg')