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Adding a colorbar to pyplot [duplicate]

I have a sequence of line plots for two variables (x,y) for a number of different values of a variable z. I would normally add the line plots with legends like this:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
# suppose mydata is a list of tuples containing (xs, ys, z)
# where xs and ys are lists of x's and y's and z is a number.
legns = []
for(xs,ys,z) in mydata:
pl = ax.plot(xs,ys,color = (z,0,0))
legns.append("z = %f"%(z))
ax.legends(legns)
plt.show()
But I have too many graphs and the legends will cover the graph. I'd rather have a colorbar indicating the value of z corresponding to the color. I can't find anything like that in the galery and all my attempts do deal with the colorbar failed. Apparently I must create a collection of plots before trying to add a colorbar.
Is there an easy way to do this? Thanks.
EDIT (clarification):
I wanted to do something like this:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.cm as cm
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
mycmap = cm.hot
# suppose mydata is a list of tuples containing (xs, ys, z)
# where xs and ys are lists of x's and y's and z is a number between 0 and 1
plots = []
for(xs,ys,z) in mydata:
pl = ax.plot(xs,ys,color = mycmap(z))
plots.append(pl)
fig.colorbar(plots)
plt.show()
But this won't work according to the Matplotlib reference because a list of plots is not a "mappable", whatever this means.
I've created an alternative plot function using LineCollection:
def myplot(ax,xs,ys,zs, cmap):
plot = lc([zip(x,y) for (x,y) in zip(xs,ys)], cmap = cmap)
plot.set_array(array(zs))
x0,x1 = amin(xs),amax(xs)
y0,y1 = amin(ys),amax(ys)
ax.add_collection(plot)
ax.set_xlim(x0,x1)
ax.set_ylim(y0,y1)
return plot
xs and ys are lists of lists of x and y coordinates and zs is a list of the different conditions to colorize each line. It feels a bit like a cludge though... I thought that there would be a more neat way to do this. I like the flexibility of the plt.plot() function.

(I know this is an old question but...) Colorbars require a matplotlib.cm.ScalarMappable, plt.plot produces lines which are not scalar mappable, therefore, in order to make a colorbar, we are going to need to make a scalar mappable.
Ok. So the constructor of a ScalarMappable takes a cmap and a norm instance. (norms scale data to the range 0-1, cmaps you have already worked with and take a number between 0-1 and returns a color). So in your case:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
sm = plt.cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=my_cmap, norm=plt.normalize(min=0, max=1))
plt.colorbar(sm)
Because your data is in the range 0-1 already, you can simplify the sm creation to:
sm = plt.cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=my_cmap)
EDIT: For matplotlib v1.2 or greater the code becomes:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
sm = plt.cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=my_cmap, norm=plt.normalize(vmin=0, vmax=1))
# fake up the array of the scalar mappable. Urgh...
sm._A = []
plt.colorbar(sm)
EDIT: For matplotlib v1.3 or greater the code becomes:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
sm = plt.cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=my_cmap, norm=plt.Normalize(vmin=0, vmax=1))
# fake up the array of the scalar mappable. Urgh...
sm._A = []
plt.colorbar(sm)
EDIT: For matplotlib v3.1 or greater simplifies to:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
sm = plt.cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=my_cmap, norm=plt.Normalize(vmin=0, vmax=1))
plt.colorbar(sm)

Here's one way to do it while still using plt.plot(). Basically, you make a throw-away plot and get the colorbar from there.
import matplotlib as mpl
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
min, max = (-40, 30)
step = 10
# Setting up a colormap that's a simple transtion
mymap = mpl.colors.LinearSegmentedColormap.from_list('mycolors',['blue','red'])
# Using contourf to provide my colorbar info, then clearing the figure
Z = [[0,0],[0,0]]
levels = range(min,max+step,step)
CS3 = plt.contourf(Z, levels, cmap=mymap)
plt.clf()
# Plotting what I actually want
X=[[1,2],[1,2],[1,2],[1,2]]
Y=[[1,2],[1,3],[1,4],[1,5]]
Z=[-40,-20,0,30]
for x,y,z in zip(X,Y,Z):
# setting rgb color based on z normalized to my range
r = (float(z)-min)/(max-min)
g = 0
b = 1-r
plt.plot(x,y,color=(r,g,b))
plt.colorbar(CS3) # using the colorbar info I got from contourf
plt.show()
It's a little wasteful, but convenient. It's also not very wasteful if you make multiple plots as you can call plt.colorbar() without regenerating the info for it.

Here is a slightly simplied example inspired by the top answer given by Boris and Hooked (Thanks for the great idea!):
1. Discrete colorbar
Discrete colorbar is more involved, because colormap generated by mpl.cm.get_cmap() is not a mappable image needed as a colorbar() argument. A dummie mappable needs to generated as shown below:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib as mpl
n_lines = 5
x = np.linspace(0, 10, 100)
y = np.sin(x[:, None] + np.pi * np.linspace(0, 1, n_lines))
c = np.arange(1, n_lines + 1)
cmap = mpl.cm.get_cmap('jet', n_lines)
fig, ax = plt.subplots(dpi=100)
# Make dummie mappable
dummie_cax = ax.scatter(c, c, c=c, cmap=cmap)
# Clear axis
ax.cla()
for i, yi in enumerate(y.T):
ax.plot(x, yi, c=cmap(i))
fig.colorbar(dummie_cax, ticks=c)
plt.show();
This will produce a plot with a discrete colorbar:
2. Continuous colorbar
Continuous colorbar is less involved, as mpl.cm.ScalarMappable() allows us to obtain an "image" for colorbar().
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib as mpl
n_lines = 5
x = np.linspace(0, 10, 100)
y = np.sin(x[:, None] + np.pi * np.linspace(0, 1, n_lines))
c = np.arange(1, n_lines + 1)
norm = mpl.colors.Normalize(vmin=c.min(), vmax=c.max())
cmap = mpl.cm.ScalarMappable(norm=norm, cmap=mpl.cm.jet)
cmap.set_array([])
fig, ax = plt.subplots(dpi=100)
for i, yi in enumerate(y.T):
ax.plot(x, yi, c=cmap.to_rgba(i + 1))
fig.colorbar(cmap, ticks=c)
plt.show();
This will produce a plot with a continuous colorbar:
[Side note] In this example, I personally don't know why cmap.set_array([]) is necessary (otherwise we'd get error messages). If someone understand the principles under the hood, please comment :)

As other answers here do try to use dummy plots, which is not really good style, here is a generic code for a
Discrete colorbar
A discrete colorbar is produced in the same way a continuous colorbar is created, just with a different Normalization. In this case a BoundaryNorm should be used.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.colors
n_lines = 5
x = np.linspace(0, 10, 100)
y = np.sin(x[:, None] + np.pi * np.linspace(0, 1, n_lines))
c = np.arange(1., n_lines + 1)
cmap = plt.get_cmap("jet", len(c))
norm = matplotlib.colors.BoundaryNorm(np.arange(len(c)+1)+0.5,len(c))
sm = plt.cm.ScalarMappable(norm=norm, cmap=cmap)
sm.set_array([]) # this line may be ommitted for matplotlib >= 3.1
fig, ax = plt.subplots(dpi=100)
for i, yi in enumerate(y.T):
ax.plot(x, yi, c=cmap(i))
fig.colorbar(sm, ticks=c)
plt.show()

Is it possible to change line color in a plot if exceeds a specific range?

Is it possible to change the line color in a plot when values exceeds a certain y value?
Example:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
a = np.array([1,2,17,20,16,3,5,4])
plt.plt(a)
This one gives the following:
I want to visualise the values that exceeds y=15. Something like the following figure:
Or something like this(with cycle linestyle)::
Is it possible?

Define a helper function (this a bare-bones one, more bells and whistles can be added). This code is a slight refactoring of this example from the documentation.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.collections import LineCollection
from matplotlib.colors import ListedColormap, BoundaryNorm
def threshold_plot(ax, x, y, threshv, color, overcolor):
"""
Helper function to plot points above a threshold in a different color
Parameters
----------
ax : Axes
Axes to plot to
x, y : array
The x and y values
threshv : float
Plot using overcolor above this value
color : color
The color to use for the lower values
overcolor: color
The color to use for values over threshv
"""
# Create a colormap for red, green and blue and a norm to color
# f' < -0.5 red, f' > 0.5 blue, and the rest green
cmap = ListedColormap([color, overcolor])
norm = BoundaryNorm([np.min(y), threshv, np.max(y)], cmap.N)
# Create a set of line segments so that we can color them individually
# This creates the points as a N x 1 x 2 array so that we can stack points
# together easily to get the segments. The segments array for line collection
# needs to be numlines x points per line x 2 (x and y)
points = np.array([x, y]).T.reshape(-1, 1, 2)
segments = np.concatenate([points[:-1], points[1:]], axis=1)
# Create the line collection object, setting the colormapping parameters.
# Have to set the actual values used for colormapping separately.
lc = LineCollection(segments, cmap=cmap, norm=norm)
lc.set_array(y)
ax.add_collection(lc)
ax.set_xlim(np.min(x), np.max(x))
ax.set_ylim(np.min(y)*1.1, np.max(y)*1.1)
return lc
Example of usage
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
x = np.linspace(0, 3 * np.pi, 500)
y = np.sin(x)
lc = threshold_plot(ax, x, y, .75, 'k', 'r')
ax.axhline(.75, color='k', ls='--')
lc.set_linewidth(3)
and the output
If you want just the markers to change color, use the same norm and cmap and pass them to scatter as
cmap = ListedColormap([color, overcolor])
norm = BoundaryNorm([np.min(y), threshv, np.max(y)], cmap.N)
sc = ax.scatter(x, y, c=c, norm=norm, cmap=cmap)

Unfortunately, matplotlib doesn't have an easy option to change the color of only part of a line. We will have to write the logic ourselves. The trick is to cut the line up into a collection of line segments, then assign a color to each of them, and then plot them.
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.collections import LineCollection
import numpy as np
# The x and y data to plot
y = np.array([1,2,17,20,16,3,5,4])
x = np.arange(len(y))
# Threshold above which the line should be red
threshold = 15
# Create line segments: 1--2, 2--17, 17--20, 20--16, 16--3, etc.
segments_x = np.r_[x[0], x[1:-1].repeat(2), x[-1]].reshape(-1, 2)
segments_y = np.r_[y[0], y[1:-1].repeat(2), y[-1]].reshape(-1, 2)
# Assign colors to the line segments
linecolors = ['red' if y_[0] > threshold and y_[1] > threshold else 'blue'
for y_ in segments_y]
# Stamp x,y coordinates of the segments into the proper format for the
# LineCollection
segments = [zip(x_, y_) for x_, y_ in zip(segments_x, segments_y)]
# Create figure
plt.figure()
ax = plt.axes()
# Add a collection of lines
ax.add_collection(LineCollection(segments, colors=linecolors))
# Set x and y limits... sadly this is not done automatically for line
# collections
ax.set_xlim(0, 8)
ax.set_ylim(0, 21)
Your second option is much easier. We first draw the line and then add the markers as a scatterplot on top of it:
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
# The x and y data to plot
y = np.array([1,2,17,20,16,3,5,4])
x = np.arange(len(y))
# Threshold above which the markers should be red
threshold = 15
# Create figure
plt.figure()
# Plot the line
plt.plot(x, y, color='blue')
# Add below threshold markers
below_threshold = y < threshold
plt.scatter(x[below_threshold], y[below_threshold], color='green')
# Add above threshold markers
above_threshold = np.logical_not(below_threshold)
plt.scatter(x[above_threshold], y[above_threshold], color='red')

Basically #RaJa provides the solution, but I think that you can do the same without loading an additional package (pandas), by using masked arrays in numpy:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
a = np.array([1,2,17,20,16,3,5,4])
# use a masked array to suppress the values that are too low
a_masked = np.ma.masked_less_equal(a, 15)
# plot the full line
plt.plot(a, 'k')
# plot only the large values
plt.plot(a_masked, 'r', linewidth=2)
# add the threshold value (optional)
plt.axhline(15, color='k', linestyle='--')
plt.show()
Result:

I don't know wether there is a built-in function in matplolib. But you could convert your numpy array into a pandas series and then use the plot function in combination with boolean selection/masking.
import numpy as np
import pandas as pd
a = np.array([1,2,17,20,16,3,5,4])
aPandas = pd.Series(a)
aPandas.plot()
aPandas[aPandas > 15].plot(color = 'red')

Matplotlib 2D line plot with color as a function of a third variable, plus colorbar [duplicate]

I have two list as below:
latt=[42.0,41.978567980875397,41.96622693388357,41.963791391892457,...,41.972407378075879]
lont=[-66.706920989908909,-66.703116557977069,-66.707351643324543,...-66.718218142021925]
now I want to plot this as a line, separate each 10 of those 'latt' and 'lont' records as a period and give it a unique color.
what should I do?

There are several different ways to do this. The "best" approach will depend mostly on how many line segments you want to plot.
If you're just going to be plotting a handful (e.g. 10) line segments, then just do something like:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def uniqueish_color():
"""There're better ways to generate unique colors, but this isn't awful."""
return plt.cm.gist_ncar(np.random.random())
xy = (np.random.random((10, 2)) - 0.5).cumsum(axis=0)
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
for start, stop in zip(xy[:-1], xy[1:]):
x, y = zip(start, stop)
ax.plot(x, y, color=uniqueish_color())
plt.show()
If you're plotting something with a million line segments, though, this will be terribly slow to draw. In that case, use a LineCollection. E.g.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.collections import LineCollection
xy = (np.random.random((1000, 2)) - 0.5).cumsum(axis=0)
# Reshape things so that we have a sequence of:
# [[(x0,y0),(x1,y1)],[(x0,y0),(x1,y1)],...]
xy = xy.reshape(-1, 1, 2)
segments = np.hstack([xy[:-1], xy[1:]])
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
coll = LineCollection(segments, cmap=plt.cm.gist_ncar)
coll.set_array(np.random.random(xy.shape[0]))
ax.add_collection(coll)
ax.autoscale_view()
plt.show()
For both of these cases, we're just drawing random colors from the "gist_ncar" coloramp. Have a look at the colormaps here (gist_ncar is about 2/3 of the way down): http://matplotlib.org/examples/color/colormaps_reference.html

Copied from this example:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.collections import LineCollection
from matplotlib.colors import ListedColormap, BoundaryNorm
x = np.linspace(0, 3 * np.pi, 500)
y = np.sin(x)
z = np.cos(0.5 * (x[:-1] + x[1:])) # first derivative
# Create a colormap for red, green and blue and a norm to color
# f' < -0.5 red, f' > 0.5 blue, and the rest green
cmap = ListedColormap(['r', 'g', 'b'])
norm = BoundaryNorm([-1, -0.5, 0.5, 1], cmap.N)
# Create a set of line segments so that we can color them individually
# This creates the points as a N x 1 x 2 array so that we can stack points
# together easily to get the segments. The segments array for line collection
# needs to be numlines x points per line x 2 (x and y)
points = np.array([x, y]).T.reshape(-1, 1, 2)
segments = np.concatenate([points[:-1], points[1:]], axis=1)
# Create the line collection object, setting the colormapping parameters.
# Have to set the actual values used for colormapping separately.
lc = LineCollection(segments, cmap=cmap, norm=norm)
lc.set_array(z)
lc.set_linewidth(3)
fig1 = plt.figure()
plt.gca().add_collection(lc)
plt.xlim(x.min(), x.max())
plt.ylim(-1.1, 1.1)
plt.show()

See the answer here to generate the "periods" and then use the matplotlib scatter function as #tcaswell mentioned. Using the plot.hold function you can plot each period, colors will increment automatically.

Cribbing the color choice off of #JoeKington,
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def uniqueish_color(n):
"""There're better ways to generate unique colors, but this isn't awful."""
return plt.cm.gist_ncar(np.random.random(n))
plt.scatter(latt, lont, c=uniqueish_color(len(latt)))
You can do this with scatter.

I have been searching for a short solution how to use pyplots line plot to show a time series coloured by a label feature without using scatter due to the amount of data points.
I came up with the following workaround:
plt.plot(np.where(df["label"]==1, df["myvalue"], None), color="red", label="1")
plt.plot(np.where(df["label"]==0, df["myvalue"], None), color="blue", label="0")
plt.legend()
The drawback is you are creating two different line plots so the connection between the different classes is not shown. For my purposes it is not a big deal. It may help someone.

Matplotlib discrete colorbar

I am trying to make a discrete colorbar for a scatterplot in matplotlib
I have my x, y data and for each point an integer tag value which I want to be represented with a unique colour, e.g.
plt.scatter(x, y, c=tag)
typically tag will be an integer ranging from 0-20, but the exact range may change
so far I have just used the default settings, e.g.
plt.colorbar()
which gives a continuous range of colours. Ideally i would like a set of n discrete colours (n=20 in this example). Even better would be to get a tag value of 0 to produce a gray colour and 1-20 be colourful.
I have found some 'cookbook' scripts but they are very complicated and I cannot think they are the right way to solve a seemingly simple problem

You can create a custom discrete colorbar quite easily by using a BoundaryNorm as normalizer for your scatter. The quirky bit (in my method) is making 0 showup as grey.
For images i often use the cmap.set_bad() and convert my data to a numpy masked array. That would be much easier to make 0 grey, but i couldnt get this to work with the scatter or the custom cmap.
As an alternative you can make your own cmap from scratch, or read-out an existing one and override just some specific entries.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib as mpl
import matplotlib.pylab as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots(1, 1, figsize=(6, 6)) # setup the plot
x = np.random.rand(20) # define the data
y = np.random.rand(20) # define the data
tag = np.random.randint(0, 20, 20)
tag[10:12] = 0 # make sure there are some 0 values to show up as grey
cmap = plt.cm.jet # define the colormap
# extract all colors from the .jet map
cmaplist = [cmap(i) for i in range(cmap.N)]
# force the first color entry to be grey
cmaplist[0] = (.5, .5, .5, 1.0)
# create the new map
cmap = mpl.colors.LinearSegmentedColormap.from_list(
'Custom cmap', cmaplist, cmap.N)
# define the bins and normalize
bounds = np.linspace(0, 20, 21)
norm = mpl.colors.BoundaryNorm(bounds, cmap.N)
# make the scatter
scat = ax.scatter(x, y, c=tag, s=np.random.randint(100, 500, 20),
cmap=cmap, norm=norm)
# create a second axes for the colorbar
ax2 = fig.add_axes([0.95, 0.1, 0.03, 0.8])
cb = plt.colorbar.ColorbarBase(ax2, cmap=cmap, norm=norm,
spacing='proportional', ticks=bounds, boundaries=bounds, format='%1i')
ax.set_title('Well defined discrete colors')
ax2.set_ylabel('Very custom cbar [-]', size=12)
I personally think that with 20 different colors its a bit hard to read the specific value, but thats up to you of course.

You could follow this example below or the newly added example in the documentation
#!/usr/bin/env python
"""
Use a pcolor or imshow with a custom colormap to make a contour plot.
Since this example was initially written, a proper contour routine was
added to matplotlib - see contour_demo.py and
http://matplotlib.sf.net/matplotlib.pylab.html#-contour.
"""
from pylab import *
delta = 0.01
x = arange(-3.0, 3.0, delta)
y = arange(-3.0, 3.0, delta)
X,Y = meshgrid(x, y)
Z1 = bivariate_normal(X, Y, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0)
Z2 = bivariate_normal(X, Y, 1.5, 0.5, 1, 1)
Z = Z2 - Z1 # difference of Gaussians
cmap = cm.get_cmap('PiYG', 11) # 11 discrete colors
im = imshow(Z, cmap=cmap, interpolation='bilinear',
vmax=abs(Z).max(), vmin=-abs(Z).max())
axis('off')
colorbar()
show()
which produces the following image:

The above answers are good, except they don't have proper tick placement on the colorbar. I like having the ticks in the middle of the color so that the number -> color mapping is more clear. You can solve this problem by changing the limits of the matshow call:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
def discrete_matshow(data):
# get discrete colormap
cmap = plt.get_cmap('RdBu', np.max(data) - np.min(data) + 1)
# set limits .5 outside true range
mat = plt.matshow(data, cmap=cmap, vmin=np.min(data) - 0.5,
vmax=np.max(data) + 0.5)
# tell the colorbar to tick at integers
cax = plt.colorbar(mat, ticks=np.arange(np.min(data), np.max(data) + 1))
# generate data
a = np.random.randint(1, 9, size=(10, 10))
discrete_matshow(a)

To set a values above or below the range of the colormap, you'll want to use the set_over and set_under methods of the colormap. If you want to flag a particular value, mask it (i.e. create a masked array), and use the set_bad method. (Have a look at the documentation for the base colormap class: http://matplotlib.org/api/colors_api.html#matplotlib.colors.Colormap )
It sounds like you want something like this:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
# Generate some data
x, y, z = np.random.random((3, 30))
z = z * 20 + 0.1
# Set some values in z to 0...
z[:5] = 0
cmap = plt.get_cmap('jet', 20)
cmap.set_under('gray')
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
cax = ax.scatter(x, y, c=z, s=100, cmap=cmap, vmin=0.1, vmax=z.max())
fig.colorbar(cax, extend='min')
plt.show()

This topic is well covered already but I wanted to add something more specific : I wanted to be sure that a certain value would be mapped to that color (not to any color).
It is not complicated but as it took me some time, it might help others not lossing as much time as I did :)
import matplotlib
from matplotlib.colors import ListedColormap
# Let's design a dummy land use field
A = np.reshape([7,2,13,7,2,2], (2,3))
vals = np.unique(A)
# Let's also design our color mapping: 1s should be plotted in blue, 2s in red, etc...
col_dict={1:"blue",
2:"red",
13:"orange",
7:"green"}
# We create a colormar from our list of colors
cm = ListedColormap([col_dict[x] for x in col_dict.keys()])
# Let's also define the description of each category : 1 (blue) is Sea; 2 (red) is burnt, etc... Order should be respected here ! Or using another dict maybe could help.
labels = np.array(["Sea","City","Sand","Forest"])
len_lab = len(labels)
# prepare normalizer
## Prepare bins for the normalizer
norm_bins = np.sort([*col_dict.keys()]) + 0.5
norm_bins = np.insert(norm_bins, 0, np.min(norm_bins) - 1.0)
print(norm_bins)
## Make normalizer and formatter
norm = matplotlib.colors.BoundaryNorm(norm_bins, len_lab, clip=True)
fmt = matplotlib.ticker.FuncFormatter(lambda x, pos: labels[norm(x)])
# Plot our figure
fig,ax = plt.subplots()
im = ax.imshow(A, cmap=cm, norm=norm)
diff = norm_bins[1:] - norm_bins[:-1]
tickz = norm_bins[:-1] + diff / 2
cb = fig.colorbar(im, format=fmt, ticks=tickz)
fig.savefig("example_landuse.png")
plt.show()

I have been investigating these ideas and here is my five cents worth. It avoids calling BoundaryNorm as well as specifying norm as an argument to scatter and colorbar. However I have found no way of eliminating the rather long-winded call to matplotlib.colors.LinearSegmentedColormap.from_list.
Some background is that matplotlib provides so-called qualitative colormaps, intended to use with discrete data. Set1, e.g., has 9 easily distinguishable colors, and tab20 could be used for 20 colors. With these maps it could be natural to use their first n colors to color scatter plots with n categories, as the following example does. The example also produces a colorbar with n discrete colors approprately labelled.
import matplotlib, numpy as np, matplotlib.pyplot as plt
n = 5
from_list = matplotlib.colors.LinearSegmentedColormap.from_list
cm = from_list(None, plt.cm.Set1(range(0,n)), n)
x = np.arange(99)
y = x % 11
z = x % n
plt.scatter(x, y, c=z, cmap=cm)
plt.clim(-0.5, n-0.5)
cb = plt.colorbar(ticks=range(0,n), label='Group')
cb.ax.tick_params(length=0)
which produces the image below. The n in the call to Set1 specifies
the first n colors of that colormap, and the last n in the call to from_list
specifies to construct a map with n colors (the default being 256). In order to set cm as the default colormap with plt.set_cmap, I found it to be necessary to give it a name and register it, viz:
cm = from_list('Set15', plt.cm.Set1(range(0,n)), n)
plt.cm.register_cmap(None, cm)
plt.set_cmap(cm)
...
plt.scatter(x, y, c=z)

I think you'd want to look at colors.ListedColormap to generate your colormap, or if you just need a static colormap I've been working on an app that might help.

Matplotlib - add colorbar to a sequence of line plots

I have a sequence of line plots for two variables (x,y) for a number of different values of a variable z. I would normally add the line plots with legends like this:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
# suppose mydata is a list of tuples containing (xs, ys, z)
# where xs and ys are lists of x's and y's and z is a number.
legns = []
for(xs,ys,z) in mydata:
pl = ax.plot(xs,ys,color = (z,0,0))
legns.append("z = %f"%(z))
ax.legends(legns)
plt.show()
But I have too many graphs and the legends will cover the graph. I'd rather have a colorbar indicating the value of z corresponding to the color. I can't find anything like that in the galery and all my attempts do deal with the colorbar failed. Apparently I must create a collection of plots before trying to add a colorbar.
Is there an easy way to do this? Thanks.
EDIT (clarification):
I wanted to do something like this:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.cm as cm
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
mycmap = cm.hot
# suppose mydata is a list of tuples containing (xs, ys, z)
# where xs and ys are lists of x's and y's and z is a number between 0 and 1
plots = []
for(xs,ys,z) in mydata:
pl = ax.plot(xs,ys,color = mycmap(z))
plots.append(pl)
fig.colorbar(plots)
plt.show()
But this won't work according to the Matplotlib reference because a list of plots is not a "mappable", whatever this means.
I've created an alternative plot function using LineCollection:
def myplot(ax,xs,ys,zs, cmap):
plot = lc([zip(x,y) for (x,y) in zip(xs,ys)], cmap = cmap)
plot.set_array(array(zs))
x0,x1 = amin(xs),amax(xs)
y0,y1 = amin(ys),amax(ys)
ax.add_collection(plot)
ax.set_xlim(x0,x1)
ax.set_ylim(y0,y1)
return plot
xs and ys are lists of lists of x and y coordinates and zs is a list of the different conditions to colorize each line. It feels a bit like a cludge though... I thought that there would be a more neat way to do this. I like the flexibility of the plt.plot() function.

(I know this is an old question but...) Colorbars require a matplotlib.cm.ScalarMappable, plt.plot produces lines which are not scalar mappable, therefore, in order to make a colorbar, we are going to need to make a scalar mappable.
Ok. So the constructor of a ScalarMappable takes a cmap and a norm instance. (norms scale data to the range 0-1, cmaps you have already worked with and take a number between 0-1 and returns a color). So in your case:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
sm = plt.cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=my_cmap, norm=plt.normalize(min=0, max=1))
plt.colorbar(sm)
Because your data is in the range 0-1 already, you can simplify the sm creation to:
sm = plt.cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=my_cmap)
EDIT: For matplotlib v1.2 or greater the code becomes:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
sm = plt.cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=my_cmap, norm=plt.normalize(vmin=0, vmax=1))
# fake up the array of the scalar mappable. Urgh...
sm._A = []
plt.colorbar(sm)
EDIT: For matplotlib v1.3 or greater the code becomes:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
sm = plt.cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=my_cmap, norm=plt.Normalize(vmin=0, vmax=1))
# fake up the array of the scalar mappable. Urgh...
sm._A = []
plt.colorbar(sm)
EDIT: For matplotlib v3.1 or greater simplifies to:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
sm = plt.cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=my_cmap, norm=plt.Normalize(vmin=0, vmax=1))
plt.colorbar(sm)

Here's one way to do it while still using plt.plot(). Basically, you make a throw-away plot and get the colorbar from there.
import matplotlib as mpl
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
min, max = (-40, 30)
step = 10
# Setting up a colormap that's a simple transtion
mymap = mpl.colors.LinearSegmentedColormap.from_list('mycolors',['blue','red'])
# Using contourf to provide my colorbar info, then clearing the figure
Z = [[0,0],[0,0]]
levels = range(min,max+step,step)
CS3 = plt.contourf(Z, levels, cmap=mymap)
plt.clf()
# Plotting what I actually want
X=[[1,2],[1,2],[1,2],[1,2]]
Y=[[1,2],[1,3],[1,4],[1,5]]
Z=[-40,-20,0,30]
for x,y,z in zip(X,Y,Z):
# setting rgb color based on z normalized to my range
r = (float(z)-min)/(max-min)
g = 0
b = 1-r
plt.plot(x,y,color=(r,g,b))
plt.colorbar(CS3) # using the colorbar info I got from contourf
plt.show()
It's a little wasteful, but convenient. It's also not very wasteful if you make multiple plots as you can call plt.colorbar() without regenerating the info for it.

Here is a slightly simplied example inspired by the top answer given by Boris and Hooked (Thanks for the great idea!):
1. Discrete colorbar
Discrete colorbar is more involved, because colormap generated by mpl.cm.get_cmap() is not a mappable image needed as a colorbar() argument. A dummie mappable needs to generated as shown below:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib as mpl
n_lines = 5
x = np.linspace(0, 10, 100)
y = np.sin(x[:, None] + np.pi * np.linspace(0, 1, n_lines))
c = np.arange(1, n_lines + 1)
cmap = mpl.cm.get_cmap('jet', n_lines)
fig, ax = plt.subplots(dpi=100)
# Make dummie mappable
dummie_cax = ax.scatter(c, c, c=c, cmap=cmap)
# Clear axis
ax.cla()
for i, yi in enumerate(y.T):
ax.plot(x, yi, c=cmap(i))
fig.colorbar(dummie_cax, ticks=c)
plt.show();
This will produce a plot with a discrete colorbar:
2. Continuous colorbar
Continuous colorbar is less involved, as mpl.cm.ScalarMappable() allows us to obtain an "image" for colorbar().
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib as mpl
n_lines = 5
x = np.linspace(0, 10, 100)
y = np.sin(x[:, None] + np.pi * np.linspace(0, 1, n_lines))
c = np.arange(1, n_lines + 1)
norm = mpl.colors.Normalize(vmin=c.min(), vmax=c.max())
cmap = mpl.cm.ScalarMappable(norm=norm, cmap=mpl.cm.jet)
cmap.set_array([])
fig, ax = plt.subplots(dpi=100)
for i, yi in enumerate(y.T):
ax.plot(x, yi, c=cmap.to_rgba(i + 1))
fig.colorbar(cmap, ticks=c)
plt.show();
This will produce a plot with a continuous colorbar:
[Side note] In this example, I personally don't know why cmap.set_array([]) is necessary (otherwise we'd get error messages). If someone understand the principles under the hood, please comment :)

As other answers here do try to use dummy plots, which is not really good style, here is a generic code for a
Discrete colorbar
A discrete colorbar is produced in the same way a continuous colorbar is created, just with a different Normalization. In this case a BoundaryNorm should be used.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.colors
n_lines = 5
x = np.linspace(0, 10, 100)
y = np.sin(x[:, None] + np.pi * np.linspace(0, 1, n_lines))
c = np.arange(1., n_lines + 1)
cmap = plt.get_cmap("jet", len(c))
norm = matplotlib.colors.BoundaryNorm(np.arange(len(c)+1)+0.5,len(c))
sm = plt.cm.ScalarMappable(norm=norm, cmap=cmap)
sm.set_array([]) # this line may be ommitted for matplotlib >= 3.1
fig, ax = plt.subplots(dpi=100)
for i, yi in enumerate(y.T):
ax.plot(x, yi, c=cmap(i))
fig.colorbar(sm, ticks=c)
plt.show()