Separate startpoints and priors

Author: dweindl

petab/v2/core.py

@@ -1862,6 +1862,24 @@ def get_priors(self) -> dict[str, Distribution]:
 
         :returns: The prior distributions for the estimated parameters.
         """
+        if not self.has_map_objective:
+            return {}
+
+        return {
+            p.id: p.prior_dist if p.prior_distribution else Uniform(p.lb, p.ub)
+            for p in self.parameters
+            if p.estimate
+        }
+
+    def get_startpoint_distributions(self) -> dict[str, Distribution]:
+        """Get distributions for sampling startpoints.
+
+        This will return uniform distributions over the parameter bounds
+        for parameters without an explicit prior.
+
+        :returns: Mapping of parameter IDs to distributions for sampling
+            startpoints.
+        """
         return {
             p.id: p.prior_dist if p.prior_distribution else Uniform(p.lb, p.ub)
             for p in self.parameters