Matplotlib Interpolate empty pixels - matplotlib

Question

I have a file 'mydata.tmp' which contains 3 colums like this:
3.81107 0.624698 0.000331622
3.86505 0.624698 0.000131237
3.91903 0.624698 5.15136e-05
3.97301 0.624698 1.93627e-05
1.32802 0.874721 1.59245
1.382 0.874721 1.542
1.43598 0.874721 1.572
1.48996 0.874721 4.27933
etc.
Then I want to make a heatmap color plot where the first two columns are coordinates, and the third column are the values of that coordinates.
Also, I would like to set the third column in log scale.
I have done this
import pandas as pd
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import scipy.interpolate
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.colors as colors
# import data
df = pd.read_csv('mydata.tmp', delim_whitespace=True,
comment='#',header=None,
names=['1','2','3'])
x = df['1']
y = df['2']
z = df['3']
spacing = 500
xi, yi = np.linspace(x.min(), x.max(), spacing), np.linspace(y.min(),
y.max(), spacing)
XI, YI = np.meshgrid(xi, yi)
rbf = scipy.interpolate.Rbf(x, y, z, function='linear')
ZI = rbf(XI, YI)
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
sc = ax.imshow(ZI, vmin=z.min(), vmax=z.max(), origin='lower',
extent=[x.min(), x.max(), y.min(),
y.max()], cmap="GnBu", norm=colors.LogNorm(vmin=ZI.min(),
vmax=ZI.max()))
fig.colorbar(sc, ax=ax, fraction=0.05, pad=0.01)
plt.show()
And I get this Image
which has all these empty pixels.
I am looking for something like this instead (I have done this other picture with GNUplot):
How can I do it?

Answer 1

You could use cmap.set_bad to define a color for the NaN values:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from scipy.interpolate import griddata
import matplotlib.colors as colors
from matplotlib import cm
import copy
# Some data
x = np.array([0, 1, 3, 0, 2, 4])
y = np.array([0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1])
z = np.array([2, 2, 3, 2, 3, 4])
# Interpolation on a grid:
nrb_points = 101
xi = np.linspace(-.5, 4.5, nrb_points)
yi = np.linspace(-.5, 1.5, nrb_points)
XI, YI = np.meshgrid(xi, yi)
xy = np.vstack((x, y)).T
XY = (XI.ravel(), YI.ravel())
ZI = griddata(points, z, XY,
method='linear',
fill_value=np.nan) # Value used [for] points
# outside of the convex hull
# of the input points.
ZI = ZI.reshape(XI.shape)
# Color map:
cmap = copy.copy(cm.jet)
cmap.set_bad('grey', 1.)
# Graph:
plt.pcolormesh(xi, yi, ZI,
#norm=colors.LogNorm(),
cmap=cmap);
plt.colorbar(label='z');
plt.plot(x, y, 'ko');
plt.xlabel('x'); plt.ylabel('y');
the result is:
I would also use griddata instead of RBF method for the interpolation. Then, point outside the input data area (i.e. the convex hull) can be set to NaN.