We Keep Coding

How to use twinx and still get square plot

How do I show a plot with twin axes such that the aspect of the top and right axes are 'equal'. For example, the following code will produce a square plot
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.set_aspect('equal')
ax.plot([0,1],[0,1])
But this changes as soon as you use the twinx function.
ax2 = ax.twinx()
ax2.set_ylim([0,2])
ax3 = ax.twiny()
ax3.set_xlim([0,2])
Using set_aspect('equal') on ax2 and ax3 seems to force it the the aspect of ax, but set_aspect(0.5) doesn't seem to change anything either.
Put simply, I would like the plot to be square, the bottom and left axes to run from 0 to 1 and the top and right axes to run from 0 to 2.
Can you set the aspect between two twined axes? I've tried stacking the axes:
ax3 = ax2.twiny()
ax3.set_aspect('equal')
I've also tried using the adjustable keyword in set_aspect:
ax.set_aspect('equal', adjustable:'box-forced')
The closest I can get is:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.set_aspect('equal', adjustable='box-forced')
ax.plot([0,1],[0,1])
ax2=ax.twinx()
ax3 = ax2.twiny()
ax3.set_aspect(1, adjustable='box-forced')
ax2.set_ylim([0,2])
ax3.set_xlim([0,2])
ax.set_xlim([0,1])
ax.set_ylim([0,1])
Which produces:
I would like to remove the extra space to the right and left of the plot

It seems overly complicated to use two different twin axes to get two independent set of axes. If the aim is to create one square plot with one axis on each side of the plot, you may use two axes, both at the same position but with different scales. Both can then be set to have equal aspect ratios.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.set_aspect('equal')
ax.plot([0,1],[0,1])
ax2 = fig.add_axes(ax.get_position())
ax2.set_facecolor("None")
ax2.set_aspect('equal')
ax2.plot([2,0],[0,2], color="red")
ax2.tick_params(bottom=0, top=1, left=0, right=1,
labelbottom=0, labeltop=1, labelleft=0, labelright=1)
plt.show()

matplotlib: reduce axes width in subplots

I have a matplotlib bar chart, which bars are colored according to some rules through a colormap. I need a colorbar on the right of the main axes, so I added a new axes with
fig, (ax, ax_cbar) = plt.subplots(1,2)
and managed to draw my color bar in the ax_bar axes, while I have my data displayed in the ax axes. Now I need to reduce the width of the ax_bar, because it looks like this:
How can I do?

Using subplots will always divide your figure equally. You can manually divide up your figure in a number of ways. My preferred method is using subplot2grid.
In this example, we are setting the figure to have 1 row and 10 columns. We then set ax to be the start at row,column = (0,0) and have a width of 9 columns. Then set ax_cbar to start at (0,9) and has by default a width of 1 column.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(8,6))
num_columns = 10
ax = plt.subplot2grid((1,num_columns), (0,0), colspan=num_columns-1)
ax_cbar = plt.subplot2grid((1,num_columns), (0,num_columns-1))

The ususal way to add a colorbar is by simply putting it next to the axes:
fig.colorbar(sm)
where fig is the figure and sm is the scalar mappable to which the colormap refers. In the case of the bars, you need to create this ScalarMappable yourself. Apart from that there is no need for complex creation of multiple axes.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.colors
import numpy as np
fig , ax = plt.subplots()
x = [0,1,2,3]
y = np.array([34,40,38,50])*1e3
norm = matplotlib.colors.Normalize(30e3, 60e3)
ax.bar(x,y, color=plt.cm.plasma_r(norm(y)) )
ax.axhline(4.2e4, color="gray")
ax.text(0.02, 4.2e4, "42000", va='center', ha="left", bbox=dict(facecolor="w",alpha=1),
transform=ax.get_yaxis_transform())
sm = plt.cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=plt.cm.plasma_r, norm=norm)
sm.set_array([])
fig.colorbar(sm)
plt.show()
If you do want to create a special axes for the colorbar yourself, the easiest method would be to set the width already inside the call to subplots:
fig , (ax, cax) = plt.subplots(ncols=2, gridspec_kw={"width_ratios" : [10,1]})
and later put the colorbar to the cax axes,
fig.colorbar(sm, cax=cax)
Note that the following questions have been asked for this homework assignment already:
Point picker event_handler drawing line and displaying coordinates in matplotlib
Matplotlib's widget to select y-axis value and change barplot
Display y axis value horizontal line drawn In bar chart
How to change colors automatically once a parameter is changed
Interactively Re-color Bars in Matplotlib Bar Chart using Confidence Intervals

Using matplotlib, how could one compare histograms by overlaying them and by showing their ratio plot?

Two histograms can be compared by creating a plot that features both an overlay of the histograms (possibly normalised) and a ratio plot of the histograms. Here is such a plot:
How could a plot like this be made using matplotlib?

I don't see what the dots are, but here's a simple example of the ratios. The main trick is to reuse the bin values that hist returns.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from numpy.random import normal
y = []
y.append(normal(2, 2, size=120))
y.append(normal(2, 2, size=120))
fig, (ax1, ax2) = plt.subplots(nrows=2)
ns, bins, patches = ax1.hist(y, normed=False,
histtype='stepfilled',
bins=8,
alpha=0.2,
label=['a','b']
)
ax1.legend()
ax2.bar(bins[:-1], # this is what makes it comparable
ns[0] / ns[1], # maybe check for div-by-zero!
alpha=0.4)
ax1.set_ylabel('Data')
ax2.set_ylabel('Ratio (a/b)')

Plot multiple y-axis AND colorbar in matplotlib

I am trying to produce a scatter plot that has two different y-axes and also a colorbar.
Here is the pseudo-code used:
#!/usr/bin/python
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import cm
fig = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(111)
plt.scatter(xgrid,
ygrid,
c=be, # set colorbar to blaze efficiency
cmap=cm.hot,
vmin=0.0,
vmax=1.0)
cbar = plt.colorbar()
cbar.set_label('Blaze Efficiency')
ax2 = ax1.twinx()
ax2.set_ylabel('Wavelength')
plt.show()
And it produces this plot:
My question is, how do you use a different scale for the "Wavelength" axes, and also, how do you move the colorbar more to right so that it is not in the Wavelength's way?

#OZ123 Sorry that I took so long to respond. Matplotlib has extensible customizability, sometimes to the point where you get confused to what you are actually doing. Thanks for the help on creating separate axes.
However, I didn't think I needed that much control, and I ended up just using the PAD keyword argument in
fig.colorbar()
and this provided what I needed.
The pseudo-code then becomes this:
#!/usr/bin/python
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import cm
fig = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(111)
mappable = ax1.scatter(xgrid,
ygrid,
c=be, # set colorbar to blaze efficiency
cmap=cm.hot,
vmin=0.0,
vmax=1.0)
cbar = fig.colorbar(mappable, pad=0.15)
cbar.set_label('Blaze Efficiency')
ax2 = ax1.twinx()
ax2.set_ylabel('Wavelength')
plt.show()
Here is to show what it looks like now::

the plt.colorbar() is made for really simple cases, e.g. not really thought for a plot with 2 y-axes.
For a fine grained control of the colorbar location and properties you should almost always rather work with colorbar specifying on which axes you want to plot the colorbar.
# on the figure total in precent l b w , height
cbaxes = fig.add_axes([0.1, 0.1, 0.8, 0.05]) # setup colorbar axes.
# put the colorbar on new axes
cbar = fig.colorbar(mapable,cax=cbaxes,orientation='horizontal')
Note that colorbar takes the following keywords:
keyword arguments:
cax
None | axes object into which the colorbar will be drawn ax
None | parent axes object from which space for a new
colorbar axes will be stolen
you could also see here a more extended answer of mine regarding figure colorbar on separate axes.

Make matplotlib autoscaling ignore some of the plots

I use matplotib's Axes API to plot some figures. One of the lines I plot represents the theoretical expected line. It has no meaning outside of the original y and x limits. What I want, is for matlplotlib to ignore it when autoscaling the limits. What I used to do, is to check what are the current limits, then plot, and reset the limits. The problem is that when I plot a third plot, the limits get recalculated together with the theoretical line, and that really expands the graph.
# Boilerplate
from matplotlib.figure import Figure
from matplotlib.backends.backend_pdf import FigureCanvasPdf
from numpy import sin, linspace
fig = Figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(1,1,1)
x1 = linspace(-1,1,100)
ax.plot(x1, sin(x1))
ax.plot(x1, 3*sin(x1))
# I wish matplotlib would not consider the second plot when rescaling
ax.plot(x1, sin(x1/2.0))
# But would consider the first and last
canvas_pdf = FigureCanvasPdf(fig)
canvas_pdf.print_figure("test.pdf")

The obvious way is to just manually set the limits to what you want. (e.g. ax.axis([xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax]))
If you don't want to bother with finding out the limits manually, you have a couple of options...
As several people (tillsten, Yann, and Vorticity) have mentioned, if you can plot the function you want to ignore last, then you can disable autoscaling before plotting it or pass the scaley=False kwarg to plot
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
x1 = np.linspace(-1,1,100)
ax.plot(x1, np.sin(x1))
ax.plot(x1, np.sin(x1 / 2.0))
ax.autoscale(False) #You could skip this line and use scalex=False on
ax.plot(x1, 3 * np.sin(x1)) #the "theoretical" plot. It has to be last either way
fig.savefig('test.pdf')
Note that you can adjust the zorder of the last plot so that it's drawn in the "middle", if you want control over that.
If you don't want to depend on the order, and you do want to just specify a list of lines to autoscale based on, then you could do something like this: (Note: This is a simplified version assuming you're dealing with Line2D objects, rather than matplotlib artists in general.)
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.transforms as mtransforms
def main():
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
x1 = np.linspace(-1,1,100)
line1, = ax.plot(x1, np.sin(x1))
line2, = ax.plot(x1, 3 * np.sin(x1))
line3, = ax.plot(x1, np.sin(x1 / 2.0))
autoscale_based_on(ax, [line1, line3])
plt.show()
def autoscale_based_on(ax, lines):
ax.dataLim = mtransforms.Bbox.unit()
for line in lines:
xy = np.vstack(line.get_data()).T
ax.dataLim.update_from_data_xy(xy, ignore=False)
ax.autoscale_view()
if __name__ == '__main__':
main()

Use the scalex/scaley kw arg:
plot(x1, 3*sin(x1), scaley=False)

LineCollection objects can be ignored by using the autolim=False argument:
from matplotlib.collections import LineCollection
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
x1 = np.linspace(-1,1,100)
# Will update limits
ax.plot(x1, np.sin(x1))
# Will not update limits
col = LineCollection([np.column_stack((x1, 3 * np.sin(x1)))], colors='g')
ax.add_collection(col, autolim=False)
# Will still update limits
ax.plot(x1, np.sin(x1 / 2.0))

This can be done regardless of plotting order by creating another axes to work on.
In this version, we create a twin axes and disable the autoscaling on that twin axes. In this way, the plot is scaled based on anything plotted in the original axes, but is not scaled by anything put into the twin axes.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
x1 = np.linspace(-1,1,100)
twin_ax = ax.twinx() # Create a twin axes.
twin_ax.autoscale(False) # Turn off autoscaling on the twin axes.
twin_ax.set_yticks([]) # Remove the extra tick numbers from the twin axis.
ax.plot(x1, np.sin(x1))
twin_ax.plot(x1, 3 * np.sin(x1), c='green') # Plotting the thing we don't want to scale on in the twin axes.
ax.plot(x1, np.sin(x1 / 2.0))
twin_ax.set_ylim(ax.get_ylim()) # Make sure the y limits of the twin matches the autoscaled of the original.
fig.savefig('test.pdf')
Note, the above only prevents the un-twined axis from auto scaling (y in the above case). To get it to work for both x and y, we can do the twinning process for both x and y (or create the new axes from scratch):
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
x1 = np.linspace(-1,1,100)
x2 = np.linspace(-2,2,100) # Would extend the x limits if auto scaled
twin_ax = ax.twinx().twiny() # Create a twin axes.
twin_ax.autoscale(False) # Turn off autoscaling on the twin axes.
twin_ax.set_yticks([]) # Remove the extra tick numbers from the twin axis.
twin_ax.set_xticks([]) # Remove the extra tick numbers from the twin axis.
ax.plot(x1, np.sin(x1))
twin_ax.plot(x2, 3 * np.sin(x2), c='green') # Plotting the thing we don't want to scale on in the twin axes.
ax.plot(x1, np.sin(x1 / 2.0))
twin_ax.set_ylim(ax.get_ylim()) # Make sure the y limits of the twin matches the autoscaled of the original.
twin_ax.set_xlim(ax.get_xlim()) # Make sure the x limits of the twin matches the autoscaled of the original.
fig.savefig('test.png')

As a generalisation of jam's answer, a collection object can be obtained from any of matplotlib's plotting functions and then re-added with autolim=False. For example,
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
x1 = np.linspace(-1,1,100)
# Get hold of collection
collection = ax.plot(x1, np.sin(x1))
# Remove collection from the plot
collection.remove()
# Rescale
ax.relim()
# Add the collection without autoscaling
ax.add_collection(collection, autolim=False)