Matplotlib: Changing the color of an axis - matplotlib

Is there a way to change the color of an axis (not the ticks) in matplotlib? I have been looking through the docs for Axes, Axis, and Artist, but no luck; the matplotlib gallery also has no hint.
Any idea?

When using figures, you can easily change the spine color with:
ax.spines['bottom'].set_color('#dddddd')
ax.spines['top'].set_color('#dddddd')
ax.spines['right'].set_color('red')
ax.spines['left'].set_color('red')
Use the following to change only the ticks:
which="both" changes both the major and minor tick colors
ax.tick_params(axis='x', colors='red')
ax.tick_params(axis='y', colors='red')
And the following to change only the label:
ax.yaxis.label.set_color('red')
ax.xaxis.label.set_color('red')
And finally the title:
ax.title.set_color('red')

You can do it by adjusting the default rc settings.
import matplotlib
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
matplotlib.rc('axes',edgecolor='r')
plt.plot([0, 1], [0, 1])
plt.savefig('test.png')

For the record, this is how I managed to make it work:
fig = pylab.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(1, 1, 1)
for child in ax.get_children():
if isinstance(child, matplotlib.spines.Spine):
child.set_color('#dddddd')

Setting edge color for all axes globally:
matplotlib.rcParams['axes.edgecolor'] = '#ff0000'

Related

how to remove the white space of invisiable axes in matplotlib during active plot?

I want to completely remove white space around my axes during active plot (not save_fig as others asked).
Here we cannot use bbox_inches='tight'. I can use tight_layout(pad=0).
When axis is on, it works fine, it shows all the ticks and x-y labels.
However, in some cases, I set the axis off. What I expected is to see the contents expand to fill up the empty space where the axes are. However, this does not work. It still keep the padding as there are still x-y labels and axes.
How can I remove the white space of invisible axes objects?
edit:
I am aware that I can use ax.set_yticks([]) and ax.set_xticks([]) to turn those off. But this is clumsy, I have to remember the the ticks before I clear them. And if I remove-then-add those ticks. The ticks cannot automatically update any more.
I wonder is there any more straightforward way to do this?
We can still see there is a small border spacing even after removing all ticks. If someone can come up a way to remove that too. It will be fantastic.
I would also like to keep the title if there is one. Thus the hard-coded ax.set_position([0,0,1,x]) is not very good for this usage. Surely we can still try to get the top spacing when there is a title, but if someone can provide a more direct/simple way to handle this, it will be preferred.
Example code:
def demo_tight_layout(w=10, h=6, axisoff=False, removeticks=False):
fig,ax = plt.subplots()
fig.set_facecolor((0.8, 0.8, 0.8))
rect = patches.Rectangle((-w/2, -h/2), w, h, color='#00ffff', alpha=0.5)
ax.add_patch(rect)
ax.plot([-w/2,w/2], [-h/2,h/2])
ax.plot([-w/2,w/2], [h/2,-h/2])
ax.set_ylabel("ylabel")
ax.margins(0)
_texts = []
if axisoff:
ax.set_axis_off()
_texts.append("axisoff")
if removeticks:
ax.set_xticks([])
ax.set_yticks([])
ax.set_ylabel("")
_texts.append("removeticks")
fig.text(0.5, 0.6, " ".join(_texts))
fig.tight_layout(pad=0)
plt.show()
return fig, ax, text
You may adjust the subplot parameters depending on whether you turned the axis off or not.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import patches
def demo_tight_layout(w=10, h=6, axisoff=False):
fig,ax = plt.subplots()
fig.set_facecolor((0.8, 0.8, 0.8))
rect = patches.Rectangle((-w/2, -h/2), w, h, color='#00ffff', alpha=0.5)
ax.add_patch(rect)
ax.plot([-w/2,w/2], [-h/2,h/2])
ax.plot([-w/2,w/2], [h/2,-h/2])
ax.set_ylabel("ylabel")
ax.margins(0)
_texts = []
fig.tight_layout()
if axisoff:
ax.set_axis_off()
_texts.append("axisoff")
params = dict(bottom=0, left=0, right=1)
if ax.get_title() == "":
params.update(top=1)
fig.subplots_adjust(**params)
fig.text(0.5, 0.6, " ".join(_texts))
plt.show()
Now demo_tight_layout(axisoff=True) produces
and demo_tight_layout(axisoff=False) produces
You need to set the axes position to fill the figure. If you create your figure and plot with
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.gca()
ax.plot(some_x_data, some_y_data)
you need to add the following line to fill the figure with the axes:
ax.set_position([0, 0, 1, 1], which='both')
This sets the axes location relative to the figure size in the following way:
[left, bottom, width, height]
So to completely fill the figure use [0, 0, 1, 1] as shown above.
So taking your code, it should look like this (using fill_figure bool to check):
def demo_tight_layout(w=10, h=6, axisoff=False, removeticks=False, fill_figure=False):
fig,ax = plt.subplots()
fig.set_facecolor((0.8, 0.8, 0.8))
rect = patches.Rectangle((-w/2, -h/2), w, h, color='#00ffff', alpha=0.5)
ax.add_patch(rect)
ax.plot([-w/2,w/2], [-h/2,h/2])
ax.plot([-w/2,w/2], [h/2,-h/2])
ax.set_ylabel("ylabel")
ax.margins(0)
_texts = []
if axisoff:
ax.set_axis_off()
_texts.append("axisoff")
if removeticks:
ax.set_xticks([])
ax.set_yticks([])
ax.set_ylabel("")
_texts.append("removeticks")
fig.text(0.5, 0.6, " ".join(_texts))
fig.tight_layout(pad=0)
if fill_figure:
ax.set_position([0, 0, 1, 1], which='both')
plt.show()
return fig, ax, text
ax.set_position needs to be after fig.tight_layout.
If a figure title is needed, there is no direct way to do it. This unluckily can't be avoided. You need to adapt the height parameters manually so that the title fits in the figure, for example with:
ax.set_position([0, 0, 1, .9], which='both')

How do I extend the margin at the bottom of a figure in Matplotlib?

The following screenshot shows my x-axis.
I added some labels and rotated them by 90 degrees in order to better read them. However, pyplot truncates the bottom such that I'm not able to completely read the labels.
How do I extend the bottom margin in order to see the complete labels?
Two retroactive ways:
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
# ...
fig.tight_layout()
Or
fig.subplots_adjust(bottom=0.2) # or whatever
Here's a subplots_adjust example: http://matplotlib.org/examples/pylab_examples/subplots_adjust.html
(but I prefer tight_layout)
A quick one-line solution that has worked for me is to use pyplot's auto tight_layout method directly, available in Matplotlib v1.1 onwards:
plt.tight_layout()
This can be invoked immediately before you show the plot (plt.show()), but after your manipulations on the axes (e.g. ticklabel rotations, etc).
This convenience method avoids manipulating individual figures of subplots.
Where plt is the standard pyplot from:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig.savefig('name.png', bbox_inches='tight')
works best for me, since it doesn't reduce the plot size compared to
fig.tight_layout()
Subplot-adjust did not work for me, since the whole figure would just resize with the labels still out of bounds.
A workaround I found was to keep the y-axis always a certain margin over the highest or minimum y-values:
x1,x2,y1,y2 = plt.axis()
plt.axis((x1,x2,y1 - 100 ,y2 + 100))
fig, ax = plt.subplots(tight_layout=True)
This is rather complicated, but it gives a general and neat solution.
import numpy as np
value1 = 3
xvalues = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
line1 = [2.0, 3.0, 2.0, 5.0, 4.0]
stdev1 = [0.1, 0.2, 0.1, 0.4, 0.3]
line2 = [1.7, 3.1, 2.5, 4.8, 4.2]
stdev2 = [0.12, 0.18, 0.12, 0.3, 0.35]
max_times = [max(line1+stdev1),max(line2+stdev2)]
min_times = [min(line1+stdev1),min(line2+stdev2)]
font_size = 25
max_total = max(max_times)
min_total = min(min_times)
max_minus_min = max_total - min_total
step_size = max_minus_min/10
head_space = (step_size*3)
plt.figure(figsize=(15, 15))
plt.errorbar(xvalues, line1, yerr=stdev1, fmt='', color='b')
plt.errorbar(xvalues, line2, yerr=stdev2, fmt='', color='r')
plt.xlabel("xvalues", fontsize=font_size)
plt.ylabel("lines 1 and 2 Test "+str(value1), fontsize=font_size)
plt.title("Let's leave space for the legend Experiment"+ str(value1), fontsize=font_size)
plt.legend(("Line1", "Line2"), loc="upper left", fontsize=font_size)
plt.tick_params(labelsize=font_size)
plt.yticks(np.arange(min_total, max_total+head_space, step=step_size) )
plt.grid()
plt.tight_layout()
Result:

hatched rectangle patches without edges in matplotlib

When trying to add a rectangle patch with a hatch pattern to a plot it seems that it is impossible to set the keyword argument edgecolor to 'none' when also specifying a hatch value.
In other words I am trying to add a hatched rectangle WITHOUT an edge but WITH a pattern filling. This doesnt seem to work. The pattern only shows up if I also allow an edge to be drawn around the rectangle patch.
Any help on how to achieve the desired behaviour?
You should use the linewidth argument, which has to be set to zero.
Example (based on your other question's answer):
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.patches as patches
import numpy as np
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
# generate some data:
x,y = np.meshgrid(np.linspace(0,1),np.linspace(0,1))
z = np.ma.masked_array(x**2-y**2,mask=y>-x+1)
# plot your masked array
ax.contourf(z)
# plot a patch
p = patches.Rectangle((20,20), 20, 20, linewidth=0, fill=None, hatch='///')
ax.add_patch(p)
plt.show()
You'll get this image:

How to remove padding/border in a matplotlib subplot

The second subplot is just the first image with an overlay ploted. In the second plot there appears to have white padding/boarder. How do I remove this padding/whitespace?
For completness, here is the fragment of code that performs the plotting:
fig, ax = plt.subplots(1, 2)
fig.set_size_inches(16, 6, forward=True)
plt.subplots_adjust(0.05, 0.05, 0.95, 0.95, 0.05, 0.05)
ax[0].set_title("Region Labels")
ax[0].imshow(image_labels)
ax[1].set_title("Region Connectivity Graph")
ax[1].imshow(image_labels)
for edge in edges:
ax[1].plot([centers[edge[0]][0],centers[edge[1]][0]],
[centers[edge[0]][1],centers[edge[1]][1]])
for a in ax:
a.set_xticks(())
a.set_yticks(())
plt.show()
By default, Matplotlib adds some margin to plotted data. I cant test it because it dont have your image_labels and centers, but this should normally work:
ax[1].autoscale_view('tight')
An alternative would be to manually set the xlim and ylim of the axes:
ax[1].set_xlim(0,image_labels.shape[1])
ax[1].set_ylim(0,image_labels.shape[0])

Matplotlib: coloring axis/tick labels

How would one color y-axis label and tick labels in red?
So for example the "y-label" and values 0 through 40, to be colored in red.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
x = np.arange(10)
fig = plt.figure()
ax = plt.subplot(111)
ax.set_ylabel("y-label")
for i in xrange(5):
ax.plot(x, i * x, label='$y = %ix$' % i)
ax.legend()
plt.show()
label = plt.ylabel("y-label")
label.set_color("red")
similarly, you can obtain and modify the tick labels:
[i.set_color("red") for i in plt.gca().get_xticklabels()]
The xlabel can be colorized when setting it,
ax.set_xlabel("x-label", color="red")
For setting the ticklabels' color, one may either use tick_params, which sets the ticklabels' as well as the ticks' color
ax.tick_params(axis='x', colors='red')
Alternatively, plt.setp can be used to only set the ticklabels' color, without changing the ticks' color.
plt.setp(ax.get_xticklabels(), color="red")
Note that for changing the properties on the y-axis, one can replace the x with a y in the above.