Related
I'm trying to generate a 3D height figure, I have a regular grid, the height data collected by the sensor and data store in a file which name is "data.txt". data stored one data per line. the file link on github
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as pit
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
from scipy.stats import multivariate_normal
from matplotlib import cm
x = np.linspace(0,350,18)
y = np.linspace(0,350,15)
z = np.loadtxt('data.txt')
xx,yy = np.meshgrid(x,y)
fig = pit.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111,projection='3d')
ax.scatter(xx,yy,z)
use the code above, I got a scatter. It looks good! I found this , I want convert the figure to surface, than I add the code below, but it looks very strange
xa = np.reshape(xx, (18,15))
ya = np.reshape(yy, (18,15))
za = np.reshape(z, (18,15))
surf=ax.plot_surface(xa,ya,za,cmap="summer",linewidth=0,antialiased=False, alpha=0.5)
fig.colorbar(surf)
pit.show()
the image
i don't know what happened, it look too strange! Should i smooth it?
You need to use xx and yy defined earlier and reshape z to the same shape as xx:
za = z.reshape(xx.shape)
fig = pit.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111,projection='3d')
surf=ax.plot_surface(xx,yy,za,cmap="summer",linewidth=0,antialiased=False, alpha=0.5)
fig.colorbar(surf)
pit.show()
Note that I have rotate the chart for better clarity.
I think you need scipy.griddata. Try this code:
from scipy.interpolate import griddata
za = griddata(x, y, z, (xx, yy), method='linear')
surf=ax.plot_surface(xx,yy,za,cmap="summer",linewidth=0,antialiased=False, alpha=0.5)
fig.colorbar(surf)
plt.show()
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()
I am trying to animate a pcolormesh in matplotlib. I have seen many of the examples using the package animation, most of them using a 1D plot routine, and some of them with imshow().
First, I wan to use the FuncAnimation routine. My problem is, first, that I do not know if I can initialize the plot
fig,ax = plt.subplots()
quad = ax.pcolormesh(X,Y,Z)
I have tried a few simple lines:
fig,ax = plt.subplots()
quad = ax.pcolormesh([])
def init():
quad.set_array([])
return quad,
def animate(ktime):
quad.set_array(X,Y,np.sin(Z)+ktime)
return quad,
anim = animation.FuncAnimation(fig,animate,init_func=init,frames=Ntime,interval=200,blit=True)
plt.show()
By the way, How do I set labels into and animated plot? Can I animate the title, if it is showing a number that changes in time?
Thanks
The problem was that I was wrongly using set_array() routine. It is very important to note that you must pass a 1D array to this routine. To do so, regarding that color, pcolormesh and so on usually plots multidimensional arrays, you should use .ravel() .
One more important thing: In order to animate different plots at the same time, the blitz option at animate.FuncAnimation must be False (See section "Animating selected plot elements" of this link).
Here I post the code that simple program with various subplots:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.gridspec as gridspec
import matplotlib.animation as animation
y, x = np.meshgrid(np.linspace(-10, 10,100), np.linspace(-10, 10,100))
z = np.sin(x)*np.sin(x)+np.sin(y)*np.sin(y)
v = np.linspace(-10, 10,100)
t = np.sin(v)*np.sin(v)
tt = np.cos(v)*np.cos(v)
###########
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(16, 8),facecolor='white')
gs = gridspec.GridSpec(5, 2)
ax1 = plt.subplot(gs[0,0])
line, = ax1.plot([],[],'b-.',linewidth=2)
ax1.set_xlim(-10,10)
ax1.set_ylim(0,1)
ax1.set_xlabel('time')
ax1.set_ylabel('amplitude')
ax1.set_title('Oscillationsssss')
time_text = ax1.text(0.02, 0.95, '', transform=ax1.transAxes)
#############################
ax2 = plt.subplot(gs[1:3,0])
quad1 = ax2.pcolormesh(x,y,z,shading='gouraud')
ax2.set_xlabel('time')
ax2.set_ylabel('amplitude')
cb2 = fig.colorbar(quad1,ax=ax2)
#########################
ax3 = plt.subplot(gs[3:,0])
quad2 = ax3.pcolormesh(x, y, z,shading='gouraud')
ax3.set_xlabel('time')
ax3.set_ylabel('amplitude')
cb3 = fig.colorbar(quad2,ax=ax3)
############################
ax4 = plt.subplot(gs[:,1])
line2, = ax4.plot(v,tt,'b',linewidth=2)
ax4.set_xlim(-10,10)
ax4.set_ylim(0,1)
def init():
line.set_data([],[])
line2.set_data([],[])
quad1.set_array([])
return line,line2,quad1
def animate(iter):
t = np.sin(2*v-iter/(2*np.pi))*np.sin(2*v-iter/(2*np.pi))
tt = np.cos(2*v-iter/(2*np.pi))*np.cos(2*v-iter/(2*np.pi))
z = np.sin(x-iter/(2*np.pi))*np.sin(x-iter/(2*np.pi))+np.sin(y)*np.sin(y)
line.set_data(v,t)
quad1.set_array(z.ravel())
line2.set_data(v,tt)
return line,line2,quad1
gs.tight_layout(fig)
anim = animation.FuncAnimation(fig,animate,frames=100,interval=50,blit=False,repeat=False)
plt.show()
print 'Finished!!'
There is an ugly detail you need to take care when using QuadMesh.set_array(). If you intantiate your QuadMesh with X, Y and C you can update the values C by using set_array(). But set_array does not support the same input as the constructor. Reading the source reveals that you need to pass a 1d-array and what is even more puzzling is that depending on the shading setting you might need to cut of your array C.
Edit: There is even a very old bug report about the confusing array size for shading='flat'.
That means:
Using QuadMesh.set_array() with shading = 'flat'
'flat' is default value for shading.
# preperation
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.ion()
y = np.linspace(-10, 10, num=1000)
x = np.linspace(-10, 10, num=1000)
X, Y = np.meshgrid(x, y)
C = np.ones((1000, 1000)) * float('nan')
# intantiate empty plot (values = nan)
pcmesh = plt.pcolormesh(X, Y, C, vmin=-100, vmax=100, shading='flat')
# generate some new data
C = X * Y
# necessary for shading='flat'
C = C[:-1, :-1]
# ravel() converts C to a 1d-array
pcmesh.set_array(C.ravel())
# redraw to update plot with new data
plt.draw()
Looks like:
Note that if you omit C = C[:-1, :-1] your will get this broken graphic:
Using QuadMesh.set_array() with shading = 'gouraud'
# preperation (same as for 'flat')
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.ion()
y = np.linspace(-10, 10, num=1000)
x = np.linspace(-10, 10, num=1000)
X, Y = np.meshgrid(x, y)
C = np.ones((1000, 1000)) * float('nan')
# intantiate empty plot (values = nan)
pcmesh = plt.pcolormesh(X, Y, C, vmin=-100, vmax=100, shading='gouraud')
# generate some new data
C = X * Y
# here no cut of of last row/column!
# ravel() converts C to a 1d-array
pcmesh.set_array(C.ravel())
# redraw to update plot with new data
plt.draw()
If you cut off the last row/column with shade='gouraud' you will get:
ValueError: total size of new array must be unchanged
I am not sure why your quad = ax.pcolormesh(X,Y,Z) function is giving an error. Can you post the error?
Below is what I would do to create a simple animation using pcolormesh:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
y, x = np.meshgrid(np.linspace(-3, 3,100), np.linspace(-3, 3,100))
z = np.sin(x**2+y**2)
z = z[:-1, :-1]
ax = plt.subplot(111)
quad = plt.pcolormesh(x, y, z)
plt.colorbar()
plt.ion()
plt.show()
for phase in np.linspace(0,10*np.pi,200):
z = np.sin(np.sqrt(x**2+y**2) + phase)
z = z[:-1, :-1]
quad.set_array(z.ravel())
plt.title('Phase: %.2f'%phase)
plt.draw()
plt.ioff()
plt.show()
One of the frames:
Does this help? If not, maybe you can clarify the question.
There is another answer presented here that looks simpler thus better (IMHO)
Here is a copy & paste of the alternative solution :
import matplotlib.pylab as plt
from matplotlib import animation
fig = plt.figure()
plt.hold(True)
#We need to prime the pump, so to speak and create a quadmesh for plt to work with
plt.pcolormesh(X[0:1], Y[0:1], C[0:1])
anim = animation.FuncAnimation(fig, animate, frames = range(2,155), blit = False)
plt.show()
plt.hold(False)
def animate( self, i):
plt.title('Ray: %.2f'%i)
#This is where new data is inserted into the plot.
plt.pcolormesh(X[i-2:i], Y[i-2:i], C[i-2:i])
I'm having issues with redrawing the figure here. I allow the user to specify the units in the time scale (x-axis) and then I recalculate and call this function plots(). I want the plot to simply update, not append another plot to the figure.
def plots():
global vlgaBuffSorted
cntr()
result = collections.defaultdict(list)
for d in vlgaBuffSorted:
result[d['event']].append(d)
result_list = result.values()
f = Figure()
graph1 = f.add_subplot(211)
graph2 = f.add_subplot(212,sharex=graph1)
for item in result_list:
tL = []
vgsL = []
vdsL = []
isubL = []
for dict in item:
tL.append(dict['time'])
vgsL.append(dict['vgs'])
vdsL.append(dict['vds'])
isubL.append(dict['isub'])
graph1.plot(tL,vdsL,'bo',label='a')
graph1.plot(tL,vgsL,'rp',label='b')
graph2.plot(tL,isubL,'b-',label='c')
plotCanvas = FigureCanvasTkAgg(f, pltFrame)
toolbar = NavigationToolbar2TkAgg(plotCanvas, pltFrame)
toolbar.pack(side=BOTTOM)
plotCanvas.get_tk_widget().pack(side=TOP)
You essentially have two options:
Do exactly what you're currently doing, but call graph1.clear() and graph2.clear() before replotting the data. This is the slowest, but most simplest and most robust option.
Instead of replotting, you can just update the data of the plot objects. You'll need to make some changes in your code, but this should be much, much faster than replotting things every time. However, the shape of the data that you're plotting can't change, and if the range of your data is changing, you'll need to manually reset the x and y axis limits.
To give an example of the second option:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
x = np.linspace(0, 6*np.pi, 100)
y = np.sin(x)
# You probably won't need this if you're embedding things in a tkinter plot...
plt.ion()
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
line1, = ax.plot(x, y, 'r-') # Returns a tuple of line objects, thus the comma
for phase in np.linspace(0, 10*np.pi, 500):
line1.set_ydata(np.sin(x + phase))
fig.canvas.draw()
fig.canvas.flush_events()
You can also do like the following:
This will draw a 10x1 random matrix data on the plot for 50 cycles of the for loop.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
plt.ion()
for i in range(50):
y = np.random.random([10,1])
plt.plot(y)
plt.draw()
plt.pause(0.0001)
plt.clf()
This worked for me. Repeatedly calls a function updating the graph every time.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.animation as anim
def plot_cont(fun, xmax):
y = []
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(1,1,1)
def update(i):
yi = fun()
y.append(yi)
x = range(len(y))
ax.clear()
ax.plot(x, y)
print i, ': ', yi
a = anim.FuncAnimation(fig, update, frames=xmax, repeat=False)
plt.show()
"fun" is a function that returns an integer.
FuncAnimation will repeatedly call "update", it will do that "xmax" times.
This worked for me:
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
from IPython.display import clear_output
import numpy as np
for i in range(50):
clear_output(wait=True)
y = np.random.random([10,1])
plt.plot(y)
plt.show()
I have released a package called python-drawnow that provides functionality to let a figure update, typically called within a for loop, similar to Matlab's drawnow.
An example usage:
from pylab import figure, plot, ion, linspace, arange, sin, pi
def draw_fig():
# can be arbitrarily complex; just to draw a figure
#figure() # don't call!
plot(t, x)
#show() # don't call!
N = 1e3
figure() # call here instead!
ion() # enable interactivity
t = linspace(0, 2*pi, num=N)
for i in arange(100):
x = sin(2 * pi * i**2 * t / 100.0)
drawnow(draw_fig)
This package works with any matplotlib figure and provides options to wait after each figure update or drop into the debugger.
In case anyone comes across this article looking for what I was looking for, I found examples at
How to visualize scalar 2D data with Matplotlib?
and
http://mri.brechmos.org/2009/07/automatically-update-a-figure-in-a-loop
(on web.archive.org)
then modified them to use imshow with an input stack of frames, instead of generating and using contours on the fly.
Starting with a 3D array of images of shape (nBins, nBins, nBins), called frames.
def animate_frames(frames):
nBins = frames.shape[0]
frame = frames[0]
tempCS1 = plt.imshow(frame, cmap=plt.cm.gray)
for k in range(nBins):
frame = frames[k]
tempCS1 = plt.imshow(frame, cmap=plt.cm.gray)
del tempCS1
fig.canvas.draw()
#time.sleep(1e-2) #unnecessary, but useful
fig.clf()
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
win = fig.canvas.manager.window
fig.canvas.manager.window.after(100, animate_frames, frames)
I also found a much simpler way to go about this whole process, albeit less robust:
fig = plt.figure()
for k in range(nBins):
plt.clf()
plt.imshow(frames[k],cmap=plt.cm.gray)
fig.canvas.draw()
time.sleep(1e-6) #unnecessary, but useful
Note that both of these only seem to work with ipython --pylab=tk, a.k.a.backend = TkAgg
Thank you for the help with everything.
All of the above might be true, however for me "online-updating" of figures only works with some backends, specifically wx. You just might try to change to this, e.g. by starting ipython/pylab by ipython --pylab=wx! Good luck!
Based on the other answers, I wrapped the figure's update in a python decorator to separate the plot's update mechanism from the actual plot. This way, it is much easier to update any plot.
def plotlive(func):
plt.ion()
#functools.wraps(func)
def new_func(*args, **kwargs):
# Clear all axes in the current figure.
axes = plt.gcf().get_axes()
for axis in axes:
axis.cla()
# Call func to plot something
result = func(*args, **kwargs)
# Draw the plot
plt.draw()
plt.pause(0.01)
return result
return new_func
Usage example
And then you can use it like any other decorator.
#plotlive
def plot_something_live(ax, x, y):
ax.plot(x, y)
ax.set_ylim([0, 100])
The only constraint is that you have to create the figure before the loop:
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
for i in range(100):
x = np.arange(100)
y = np.full([100], fill_value=i)
plot_something_live(ax, x, y)
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()