# 04-01 Interactive Plotting with Matplotlib

## 04 - 01 Interactive Plotting with Matplotlib¶

One can use Jupyter notebook as a browser-based interactive data analysis tool to combine narrative, code, graphics, and much more into a single executable document.

Plotting interactively within a notebook can be done with the %matplotlib inline command and then importing pyplot from matplotlib

In [2]:
%matplotlib inline
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt


Before we get into learning some stuff, lets set up the style of our plots. Starting from Matplotlib v1.5, you have many different plotting styles to chose from. To get all the list of supported ones, run

In [2]: plt.style.available


Personally, I prefer using seaborn-darkgrid but you are free to chose from whatever you like

In [3]:
plt.style.use('seaborn-darkgrid')


## 04 - 02 pyplot¶

The pyplot module is where everything in matplotlib comes together. It is the launching point for

• making plots, and
• doing any modifications and decorations you want.

It all comes together here. Let us take a look at those three catagories of pyplot functions.

### Plotting Preparation¶

Function Description
autoscale Autoscale the axis view to the data (toggle).
axes Add an axes to the figure.
axis Convenience method to get or set axis properties.
cla Clear the current axes.
clf Clear the current figure.
clim Set the color limits of the current image.
delaxes Remove an axes from the current figure.
locator_params Control behavior of tick locators.
margins Set or retrieve autoscaling margins.
figure Creates a new figure.
gca Return the current axis instance.
gcf Return a reference to the current figure.
gci Get the current colorable artist.
hold Set the hold state.
ioff Turn interactive mode off.
ion Turn interactive mode on.
ishold Return the hold status of the current axes.
isinteractive Return status of interactive mode.
rc Set the current rc params.
rc_context Return a context manager for managing rc settings.
rcdefaults Restore the default rc params.
savefig Save the current figure.
sca Set the current Axes instance.
sci Set the current image.
set_cmap Set the default colormap
setp Set a property on an artist object
show Display a figure
subplot Return a subplot axes positioned by the given grid definition.
subplot2grid Create a subplot in a grid.
subplot_tool Launch a subplot tool window for a figure.
subplots Create a figure with a set of subplots already made.
subplots_adjust Tune the subplot layout.
switch_backend Switch the default backend.
tick_params Change the appearance of ticks and tick labels.
ticklabel_format Change the ScalarFormatter used by default for linear axes.
tight_layout Automatically adjust subplot parameters to give specified padding.
xkcd Turns on XKCD sketch-style drawing mode.
xlabel Set the x axis label of the current axis.
xlim Get or set the x limits of the current axes.
xscale Set the scaling of the x-axis.
xticks Get or set the x-limits of the current tick locations and labels.
ylabel Set the y axis label of the current axis.
ylim Get or set the y-limits of the current axes.
yscale Set the scaling of the y-axis.
yticks Get or set the y-limits of the current tick locations and labels.

## Plotting Functions¶

Function Description
acorr Plot the autocorrelation of x
bar Make a bar plot
barbs Plot a 2-D field of barbs
barh Make a horizontal bar plot
boxplot Make a box and whisker plot
broken_barh Plot horizontal bars
cohere Plot the coherence between x and y
contour Plot contours
contourf Plot filled contours
csd Plot cross-spectral density
errorbar Plot an errorbar graph
eventplot Plot identical parallel lines at specific positions
fill Plot filled polygons
fill_between Make filled polygons between two curves
fill_betweenx Make filled polygons between two horizontal curves
hexbin Make a hexagonal binning plot
hist Plot a histogram
hist2d Make a 2D histogram plot
imshow Display an image on the axes
loglog Make a plot with log scaling on both the x and y axis
matshow Display an array as a matrix in a new figure window
pcolor Create a pseudocolor plot of a 2-D array
pcolormesh Plot a quadrilateral mesh
pie Plot a pie chart
plot Plot lines and/or markers
plot_date Plot with data with dates
polar Make a polar plot
psd Plot the power spectral density
quiver Plot a 2-D field of arrows
scatter Make a scatter plot of x vs y
semilogx Make a plot with log scaling on the x axis
semilogy Make a plot with log scaling on the y axis
specgram Plot a spectrogram
spy Plot the sparsity pattern on a 2-D array
stackplot Draws a stacked area plot
stem Create a stem plot
step Make a step plot
streamplot Draws streamlines of a vector flow
tricontour Draw contours on an unstructured triangular grid
tricontourf Draw filled contours on an unstructured triangular grid
tripcolor Create a pseudocolor plot of an unstructured triangular grid
triplot Draw a unstructured triangular grid as lines and/or markers
xcorr Plot the cross-correlation between x and y

## Plot modifiers¶

Function Description
annotate Create an annotation: a piece of text referring to a data point
arrow Add an arrow to the axes
axhline Add a horizontal line across the axis
axhspan Add a horizontal span (rectangle) across the axis
axvline Add a vertical line across the axes
axvspan Add a vertical span (rectangle) across the axes
box Turn the axes box on or off
clabel Label a contour plot
colorbar Add a colorbar to a plot
grid Turn the axes grids on or off
hlines Plot horizontal lines
legend Place a legend on the current axes
minorticks_off Remove minor ticks from the current plot
minorticks_on Display minor ticks on the current plot
quiverkey Add a key to a quiver plot
rgrids Get or set the radial gridlines on a polar plot
suptitle Add a centered title to the figure
table Add a table to the current axes
text Add text to the axes
title Set a title of the current axes
vlines Plot vertical lines
xlabel Set the x axis label of the current axis
ylabel Set the y axis label of the current axis

Don't get bogged down by the enourmous list. We will look at some of them throughout the remaining UCSL coursework and slowly these options will start to click as you do more and more plotting.

### 04 - 02.01 Figure¶

All plotting is done through the Figure object. You can create as many figures as you need. Figures can't do much by themselves, but no plotting can happen without them. They are, literally, the canvas of your plot.

#### Figure Properties¶

• ##### figsize : tuple of integers, width, height in inches.
• ##### dpi : integer, esolution of the figure in dots per inch.
In [62]:
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(10, 4))
# Now plot
plt.plot()

Out[62]:
[]

A really useful function is figaspect

This lets you create a figure with specified aspect ratio. If arg is a number, use that aspect ratio. If arg is an array, figaspect will determine the width and height for a figure that would fit array preserving aspect ratio.

In [63]:
# Twice as wide. Ratio of Height/ Width
fig = plt.figure(figsize=plt.figaspect(0.5))
plt.plot()

Out[63]:
[]

If we want to save the plot, we can call the method plt.savefig(<filename>). The default format in which the image is saved is png. There are many other formats supported. To get a list of all the formats, you can use this function: fig.canvas.get_supported_filetypes()

### 04 - 02.02 Axes¶

From above output we can observe that Matplotlib automatically creates axis for us. mpl gives us an option to change the axes. (Obviously since All plotting is done with respect to an Axes).

An Axes is made up of Axis objects (and many other things). An Axes object must belong to a particular Figure (and only one Figure). Most commands you will ever issue will be with respect to this Axes object.

In [7]:
# Lets manually add axis for x axis
import numpy as np
fig = plt.figure()
theta = np.linspace(-np.pi, np.pi, 100)
plt.plot(theta, np.sin(theta))

Out[7]:
[<matplotlib.lines.Line2D at 0x10e37d710>]

fig.add_subplot(numrows numcols fignum).

• fignum ranges from 1 to numrows*numcols.

If you want to place an axes manually, i.e., not on a rectangular grid, use the axes() command, which allows you to specify the location as axes([left, bottom, width, height]) where all values are in fractional (0 to 1) coordinates.

Each figure can contain as many axes and subplots as your heart desires

### 04 - 02.03 Linestyles¶

Line styles are about as commonly used as colors. There are a few predefined linestyles available to use. Note that there are some advanced techniques to specify some custom line styles. Here is an example of a custom dash pattern.

linestyle description
'-' solid
'--' dashed
'-.' dashdot
':' dotted
'None' draw nothing
' ' draw nothing
'' draw nothing

Also, don't mix up ".-" (line with dot markers) and "-." (dash-dot line) when using the plot or scatter functions.

In [22]:
fig = plt.figure()
theta = np.linspace(-np.pi, np.pi, 100)
# combining - and .
plt.plot(theta, np.sin(theta), ls='-.')

Out[22]:
[<matplotlib.lines.Line2D at 0x10ed220b8>]

### 04 - 02.04 Limits and autoscaling¶

As mentioned above, by default, matplotlib will attempt to determine limits for you that encompasses all the data you have plotted. This is the autoscale feature. Lets look at the above example and set limits on x-axis

In [17]:
fig = plt.figure()
theta = np.linspace(-np.pi, np.pi, 100)
plt.plot(theta, np.sin(theta))
# Set limits on X-axis
ax.set_xlim(-np.pi, np.pi/2)

Out[17]:
(-3.141592653589793, 1.5707963267948966)

### 04 - 02.05 Labels and Legends¶

You can label just about anything in mpl. You can provide a label to your plot, which allows your legend to automatically build itself. The X and Y axis can also be labeled, as well as the subplot itself via the title.

In [9]:
# Temperature data obtained from NASA: https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/
surface_temp_change = '-0.29,-0.1,0.11,-0.33,-0.18,-0.64,-0.42,-0.65,-0.42,-0.2,-0.47,-0.46,-0.25,-0.68,-0.55,-0.43,-0.22,-0.22,-0.06,-0.17,-0.39,-0.28,-0.18,-0.27,-0.63,-0.38,-0.3,-0.43,-0.45,-0.69,-0.43,-0.62,-0.26,-0.42,0.02,-0.18,-0.17,-0.46,-0.42,-0.2,-0.14,-0.03,-0.33,-0.25,-0.23,-0.32,0.21,-0.28,-0.02,-0.47,-0.29,-0.1,0.14,-0.34,-0.26,-0.36,-0.28,-0.1,0.0,-0.12,-0.15,0.13,0.26,0.0,0.41,0.13,0.15,-0.13,0.05,0.09,-0.3,-0.35,0.16,0.09,-0.28,0.11,-0.16,-0.14,0.39,0.06,-0.01,0.07,0.08,-0.03,-0.06,-0.09,-0.16,-0.06,-0.23,-0.11,0.09,-0.03,-0.24,0.28,-0.15,0.07,0.0,0.18,0.08,0.14,0.3,0.56,0.09,0.52,0.3,0.21,0.29,0.36,0.56,0.15,0.4,0.42,0.45,0.37,0.3,0.5,0.27,0.32,0.61,0.48,0.26,0.44,0.75,0.73,0.59,0.71,0.58,0.96,0.25,0.62,0.73,0.51,0.46,0.68,0.73,0.82,1.13,0.9'
surface_temp_change_arr = np.fromstring(surface_temp_change, sep=",")
surface_temp_year = np.array(range(1880, 2018))

In [10]:
fig = plt.figure(figsize=plt.figaspect(0.5))
ax.plot(surface_temp_year, surface_temp_change_arr, label='Global Surface Temp Change')
ax.set_ylabel('Temperature (deg C)')
ax.set_xlabel('Month of January')
ax.set_title("A tale of Global Warming")
ax.legend()

Out[10]:
<matplotlib.legend.Legend at 0x10e57bef0>

### 04 - 02.06 "Twinning" axes¶

Sometimes one may want to overlay two plots on the same axes, but the scales may be entirely different. You can simply treat them as separate plots, but then twin them.

In [11]:
# CO2 data obtained from http://cdiac.ornl.gov/CO2_Emission/timeseries/global
co2_emission_str = '865.412,891.081,938.752,997.424,1008.425,1015.759,1030.427,1081.765,1199.109,1199.109,1305.452,1364.124,1371.458,1356.79,1404.461,1488.802,1536.473,1613.48,1705.155,1859.169,1958.178,2024.184,2075.522,2262.539,2288.208,2431.221,2592.569,2874.928,2750.25,2878.595,3003.273,3065.612,3223.293,3457.981,3116.95,3072.946,3303.967,3501.985,3432.312,2955.602,3417.644,2944.601,3098.615,3556.99,3531.321,3575.325,3604.661,3894.354,3905.355,4198.715,3861.351,3446.98,3105.949,3274.631,3567.991,3766.009,4143.71,4433.403,4187.714,4371.064,4763.433,4891.778,4921.114,5100.797,5071.461,4253.72,4539.746,5104.464,5386.823,5203.473,5977.21,6479.589,6582.265,6750.947,6838.955,7488.014,7983.059,8324.09,8544.11,8998.818,9420.523,9460.86,9849.562,10388.611,10982.665,11477.71,12057.096,12442.131,13076.522,13861.26,14862.351,15430.736,16046.792,16919.538,16952.541,16853.532,17836.288,18393.672,18606.358,19644.119,19438.767,18841.046,18679.698,18610.025,19281.086,19864.139,20472.861,20993.575,21767.312,22244.022,22354.032,22629.057,22405.37,22383.368,22764.736,23263.448,23802.497,24161.863,24095.857,24051.853,24667.909,25250.962,25470.982,27014.789,28364.245,29427.675,30461.769,31125.496,32042.246,31686.547,33505.379,34865.836,35463.557,35848.592'
co2_emissions_arr = np.fromstring(co2_emission_str, sep=",")

In [12]:
fig = plt.figure(figsize=plt.figaspect(0.5))
ax.plot(surface_temp_year, surface_temp_change_arr, label='Global Surface Temp Change')
# Share x axis
ax2 = ax.twinx()
ax2.plot(surface_temp_year[:-4], co2_emission_arr, label='CO2 emission', color='orange')
ax2.set_ylabel('Million Tons of $CO_2$')
ax.set_ylabel('Temperature (deg C)')
ax.set_xlabel('Month of January')
ax.set_title("A tale of Global Warming")
ax.legend(loc="upper left")
ax2.legend(loc="lower right")
# turn off grids for CO2
ax2.grid(False, which='both')

---------------------------------------------------------------------------
NameError                                 Traceback (most recent call last)
<ipython-input-12-92c83ee2d1e4> in <module>()
4 # Share x axis
5 ax2 = ax.twinx()
----> 6 ax2.plot(surface_temp_year[:-4], co2_emission_arr, label='CO2 emission', color='orange')
7 ax2.set_ylabel('Million Tons of $CO_2$')
8 ax.set_ylabel('Temperature (deg C)')

NameError: name 'co2_emission_arr' is not defined

This is a peek into how easy it is to visualize the data. In the next few sub-modules, we will look at ways of using subplots, annotating plots, plotting histogram and more.