Fitting multiple data sets using lmfit without writting an objective function - python-2.7

Question

This topic describes how to fit multiple data-sets using lmfit:
Python and lmfit: How to fit multiple datasets with shared parameters?
However it uses a fitting/objective function written by the user.
I was wondering if it's possible to fit multiple data-sets using lmfit without writing an objective function and using model.fit() method of the model class.
As an example: Lets say we have multiple data sets of (x,y) coordinates that we want to fit using the same model function in order to find the set of parameters that on average fit all the data best.
import numpy as np
from lmfit import Model, Parameters
from lmfit.models import GaussianModel
def gauss(x, amp, cen, sigma):
return amp*np.exp(-(x-cen)**2/(2.*sigma**2))
x1= np.arange(0.,100.,0.1)
x2= np.arange(0.,100.,0.09)
y1= gauss(x1, 1.,50.,5.)+ np.random.normal(size=len(x1), scale=0.1)
y2= gauss(x2, 0.8,48.4.,4.5)+ np.random.normal(size=len(x2), scale=0.1)
mod= GaussianModel()
params= mod.make_params()
mod.fit([y1,y2], params, x= [x1, x2])
I guess if this is possible the data has to be passed to mod.fit in the right type. The documentation only says that mod.fit takes an array-like data input.
I tried to give it lists and arrays. If I pass the different data sets as a list I get a ValueError: setting an array element with a sequence
If I pass an array I get an AttributeError: 'numpy.ndarray' has no atribute 'exp'
So am I just trying to do something that isn't possible or am I doing something wrong?

Answer 1

Well, I think the answer is "sort of". The lmfit.Model class is meant to represent a model for an array of data. So, if you can map your multiple datasets into a numpy ndarray (say, with np.concatenate), you can probably write a Model function to represent this by building sub-models for the different datasets and concatenating them in the same way.
I don't think you could do that with any of the built-in models. I also think that once you start down the road of writing complex model functions, it isn't a very big jump to writing objective functions. That is, what would be
def model_function(x, a, b, c):
### do some calculation with x, a, b, c values
result = a + x*b + x*x*c
return result
might become
def objective_function(params, x, data):
vals = params.valuesdict()
return data - model_function(x, vals['a'], vals['b'], vals['c'])
If that do_calc() is doing anything complex, the additional burden of unpacking the parameters and subtracting the data is pretty small. And, especially if some parameters would be used for multiple datasets and some only for particular datasets, you'll have to manage that in either the model function or the objective function. In the example you link to, my answer included a loop over datasets, picking out parameters by name for each dataset. You'll probably want to do something like that. You could probably do that in a model function by thinking of it as modeling the concatenated datasets, but I'm not sure you'd really gain a lot by doing that.

Answer 2

I found the problem. Actually model.fit() will handle arrays of multiple data sets just fine and perform a proper fit. The correct call of model.fit() with multiple data sets would be:
import numpy as np
from lmfit import Model, Parameters
from lmfit.models import GaussianModel
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def gauss(x, amp, cen, sigma):
"basic gaussian"
return amp*np.exp(-(x-cen)**2/(2.*sigma**2))
x1= np.arange(0.,100.,0.1)
x2= np.arange(0.,100.,0.1)
y1= gauss(x1, 1.,50.,5.)+ np.random.normal(size=len(x1), scale=0.01)
y2= gauss(x2, 0.8,48.4,4.5)+ np.random.normal(size=len(x2), scale=0.01)
mod= GaussianModel()
params= mod.make_params()
params['amplitude'].set(1.,min=0.01,max=100.)
params['center'].set(1.,min=0.01,max=100.)
params['sigma'].set(1.,min=0.01,max=100.)
result= mod.fit(np.array([y1,y2]), params,method='basinhopping',
x=np.array([x1,x2]))
print(result.fit_report(min_correl=0.5))
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
plt.plot(x1,y1, lw=2, color='red')
plt.plot(x2,y2, lw=2, color='orange')
plt.plot(x1,result.eval(x=x1), lw=2, color='black')
plt.show()
The problem in the original code actually lies in the fact that my data sets don't have the same length. However I'm not sure at all how to handle this in the most elegant way?