I've spent entirely too long researching how to get two subplots to share the same y-axis with a single colorbar shared between the two in Matplotlib.
What was happening was that when I called the colorbar() function in either subplot1 or subplot2, it would autoscale the plot such that the colorbar plus the plot would fit inside the 'subplot' bounding box, causing the two side-by-side plots to be two very different sizes.
To get around this, I tried to create a third subplot which I then hacked to render no plot with just a colorbar present.
The only problem is, now the heights and widths of the two plots are uneven, and I can't figure out how to make it look okay.
Here is my code:
from __future__ import division
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from matplotlib import patches
from matplotlib.ticker import NullFormatter
# SIS Functions
TE = 1 # Einstein radius
g1 = lambda x,y: (TE/2) * (y**2-x**2)/((x**2+y**2)**(3/2))
g2 = lambda x,y: -1*TE*x*y / ((x**2+y**2)**(3/2))
kappa = lambda x,y: TE / (2*np.sqrt(x**2+y**2))
coords = np.linspace(-2,2,400)
X,Y = np.meshgrid(coords,coords)
g1out = g1(X,Y)
g2out = g2(X,Y)
kappaout = kappa(X,Y)
for i in range(len(coords)):
for j in range(len(coords)):
if np.sqrt(coords[i]**2+coords[j]**2) <= TE:
g1out[i][j]=0
g2out[i][j]=0
fig = plt.figure()
fig.subplots_adjust(wspace=0,hspace=0)
# subplot number 1
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(1,2,1,aspect='equal',xlim=[-2,2],ylim=[-2,2])
plt.title(r"$\gamma_{1}$",fontsize="18")
plt.xlabel(r"x ($\theta_{E}$)",fontsize="15")
plt.ylabel(r"y ($\theta_{E}$)",rotation='horizontal',fontsize="15")
plt.xticks([-2.0,-1.5,-1.0,-0.5,0,0.5,1.0,1.5])
plt.xticks([-2.0,-1.5,-1.0,-0.5,0,0.5,1.0,1.5])
plt.imshow(g1out,extent=(-2,2,-2,2))
plt.axhline(y=0,linewidth=2,color='k',linestyle="--")
plt.axvline(x=0,linewidth=2,color='k',linestyle="--")
e1 = patches.Ellipse((0,0),2,2,color='white')
ax1.add_patch(e1)
# subplot number 2
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(1,2,2,sharey=ax1,xlim=[-2,2],ylim=[-2,2])
plt.title(r"$\gamma_{2}$",fontsize="18")
plt.xlabel(r"x ($\theta_{E}$)",fontsize="15")
ax2.yaxis.set_major_formatter( NullFormatter() )
plt.axhline(y=0,linewidth=2,color='k',linestyle="--")
plt.axvline(x=0,linewidth=2,color='k',linestyle="--")
plt.imshow(g2out,extent=(-2,2,-2,2))
e2 = patches.Ellipse((0,0),2,2,color='white')
ax2.add_patch(e2)
# subplot for colorbar
ax3 = fig.add_subplot(1,1,1)
ax3.axis('off')
cbar = plt.colorbar(ax=ax2)
plt.show()
Just place the colorbar in its own axis and use subplots_adjust to make room for it.
As a quick example:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2)
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.subplots_adjust(right=0.8)
cbar_ax = fig.add_axes([0.85, 0.15, 0.05, 0.7])
fig.colorbar(im, cax=cbar_ax)
plt.show()
Note that the color range will be set by the last image plotted (that gave rise to im) even if the range of values is set by vmin and vmax. If another plot has, for example, a higher max value, points with higher values than the max of im will show in uniform color.
You can simplify Joe Kington's code using the axparameter of figure.colorbar() with a list of axes.
From the documentation:
ax
None | parent axes object(s) from which space for a new colorbar axes will be stolen. If a list of axes is given they will all be resized to make room for the colorbar axes.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2)
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.ravel().tolist())
plt.show()
This solution does not require manual tweaking of axes locations or colorbar size, works with multi-row and single-row layouts, and works with tight_layout(). It is adapted from a gallery example, using ImageGrid from matplotlib's AxesGrid Toolbox.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits.axes_grid1 import ImageGrid
# Set up figure and image grid
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(9.75, 3))
grid = ImageGrid(fig, 111, # as in plt.subplot(111)
nrows_ncols=(1,3),
axes_pad=0.15,
share_all=True,
cbar_location="right",
cbar_mode="single",
cbar_size="7%",
cbar_pad=0.15,
)
# Add data to image grid
for ax in grid:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
# Colorbar
ax.cax.colorbar(im)
ax.cax.toggle_label(True)
#plt.tight_layout() # Works, but may still require rect paramater to keep colorbar labels visible
plt.show()
Using make_axes is even easier and gives a better result. It also provides possibilities to customise the positioning of the colorbar.
Also note the option of subplots to share x and y axes.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib as mpl
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2, sharex=True, sharey=True)
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
cax,kw = mpl.colorbar.make_axes([ax for ax in axes.flat])
plt.colorbar(im, cax=cax, **kw)
plt.show()
As a beginner who stumbled across this thread, I'd like to add a python-for-dummies adaptation of abevieiramota's very neat answer (because I'm at the level that I had to look up 'ravel' to work out what their code was doing):
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ((ax1,ax2,ax3),(ax4,ax5,ax6)) = plt.subplots(2,3)
axlist = [ax1,ax2,ax3,ax4,ax5,ax6]
first = ax1.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
third = ax3.imshow(np.random.random((12,12)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.colorbar(first, ax=axlist)
plt.show()
Much less pythonic, much easier for noobs like me to see what's actually happening here.
Shared colormap and colorbar
This is for the more complex case where the values are not just between 0 and 1; the cmap needs to be shared instead of just using the last one.
import numpy as np
from matplotlib.colors import Normalize
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.cm as cm
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2)
cmap=cm.get_cmap('viridis')
normalizer=Normalize(0,4)
im=cm.ScalarMappable(norm=normalizer)
for i,ax in enumerate(axes.flat):
ax.imshow(i+np.random.random((10,10)),cmap=cmap,norm=normalizer)
ax.set_title(str(i))
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.ravel().tolist())
plt.show()
As pointed out in other answers, the idea is usually to define an axes for the colorbar to reside in. There are various ways of doing so; one that hasn't been mentionned yet would be to directly specify the colorbar axes at subplot creation with plt.subplots(). The advantage is that the axes position does not need to be manually set and in all cases with automatic aspect the colorbar will be exactly the same height as the subplots. Even in many cases where images are used the result will be satisfying as shown below.
When using plt.subplots(), the use of gridspec_kw argument allows to make the colorbar axes much smaller than the other axes.
fig, (ax, ax2, cax) = plt.subplots(ncols=3,figsize=(5.5,3),
gridspec_kw={"width_ratios":[1,1, 0.05]})
Example:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np; np.random.seed(1)
fig, (ax, ax2, cax) = plt.subplots(ncols=3,figsize=(5.5,3),
gridspec_kw={"width_ratios":[1,1, 0.05]})
fig.subplots_adjust(wspace=0.3)
im = ax.imshow(np.random.rand(11,8), vmin=0, vmax=1)
im2 = ax2.imshow(np.random.rand(11,8), vmin=0, vmax=1)
ax.set_ylabel("y label")
fig.colorbar(im, cax=cax)
plt.show()
This works well, if the plots' aspect is autoscaled or the images are shrunk due to their aspect in the width direction (as in the above). If, however, the images are wider then high, the result would look as follows, which might be undesired.
A solution to fix the colorbar height to the subplot height would be to use mpl_toolkits.axes_grid1.inset_locator.InsetPosition to set the colorbar axes relative to the image subplot axes.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np; np.random.seed(1)
from mpl_toolkits.axes_grid1.inset_locator import InsetPosition
fig, (ax, ax2, cax) = plt.subplots(ncols=3,figsize=(7,3),
gridspec_kw={"width_ratios":[1,1, 0.05]})
fig.subplots_adjust(wspace=0.3)
im = ax.imshow(np.random.rand(11,16), vmin=0, vmax=1)
im2 = ax2.imshow(np.random.rand(11,16), vmin=0, vmax=1)
ax.set_ylabel("y label")
ip = InsetPosition(ax2, [1.05,0,0.05,1])
cax.set_axes_locator(ip)
fig.colorbar(im, cax=cax, ax=[ax,ax2])
plt.show()
New in matplotlib 3.4.0
Shared colorbars can now be implemented using subfigures:
New Figure.subfigures and Figure.add_subfigure allow ... localized figure artists (e.g., colorbars and suptitles) that only pertain to each subfigure.
The matplotlib gallery includes demos on how to plot subfigures.
Here is a minimal example with 2 subfigures, each with a shared colorbar:
fig = plt.figure(constrained_layout=True)
(subfig_l, subfig_r) = fig.subfigures(nrows=1, ncols=2)
axes_l = subfig_l.subplots(nrows=1, ncols=2, sharey=True)
for ax in axes_l:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10, 10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
# shared colorbar for left subfigure
subfig_l.colorbar(im, ax=axes_l, location='bottom')
axes_r = subfig_r.subplots(nrows=3, ncols=1, sharex=True)
for ax in axes_r:
mesh = ax.pcolormesh(np.random.randn(30, 30), vmin=-2.5, vmax=2.5)
# shared colorbar for right subfigure
subfig_r.colorbar(mesh, ax=axes_r)
The solution of using a list of axes by abevieiramota works very well until you use only one row of images, as pointed out in the comments. Using a reasonable aspect ratio for figsize helps, but is still far from perfect. For example:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=1, ncols=3, figsize=(9.75, 3))
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.ravel().tolist())
plt.show()
The colorbar function provides the shrink parameter which is a scaling factor for the size of the colorbar axes. It does require some manual trial and error. For example:
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.ravel().tolist(), shrink=0.75)
To add to #abevieiramota's excellent answer, you can get the euqivalent of tight_layout with constrained_layout. You will still get large horizontal gaps if you use imshow instead of pcolormesh because of the 1:1 aspect ratio imposed by imshow.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2, constrained_layout=True)
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.pcolormesh(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.flat)
plt.show()
I noticed that almost every solution posted involved ax.imshow(im, ...) and did not normalize the colors displayed to the colorbar for the multiple subfigures. The im mappable is taken from the last instance, but what if the values of the multiple im-s are different? (I'm assuming these mappables are treated in the same way that the contour-sets and surface-sets are treated.) I have an example using a 3d surface plot below that creates two colorbars for a 2x2 subplot (one colorbar per one row). Although the question asks explicitly for a different arrangement, I think the example helps clarify some things. I haven't found a way to do this using plt.subplots(...) yet because of the 3D axes unfortunately.
If only I could position the colorbars in a better way... (There is probably a much better way to do this, but at least it should be not too difficult to follow.)
import matplotlib
from matplotlib import cm
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
cmap = 'plasma'
ncontours = 5
def get_data(row, col):
""" get X, Y, Z, and plot number of subplot
Z > 0 for top row, Z < 0 for bottom row """
if row == 0:
x = np.linspace(1, 10, 10, dtype=int)
X, Y = np.meshgrid(x, x)
Z = np.sqrt(X**2 + Y**2)
if col == 0:
pnum = 1
else:
pnum = 2
elif row == 1:
x = np.linspace(1, 10, 10, dtype=int)
X, Y = np.meshgrid(x, x)
Z = -np.sqrt(X**2 + Y**2)
if col == 0:
pnum = 3
else:
pnum = 4
print("\nPNUM: {}, Zmin = {}, Zmax = {}\n".format(pnum, np.min(Z), np.max(Z)))
return X, Y, Z, pnum
fig = plt.figure()
nrows, ncols = 2, 2
zz = []
axes = []
for row in range(nrows):
for col in range(ncols):
X, Y, Z, pnum = get_data(row, col)
ax = fig.add_subplot(nrows, ncols, pnum, projection='3d')
ax.set_title('row = {}, col = {}'.format(row, col))
fhandle = ax.plot_surface(X, Y, Z, cmap=cmap)
zz.append(Z)
axes.append(ax)
## get full range of Z data as flat list for top and bottom rows
zz_top = zz[0].reshape(-1).tolist() + zz[1].reshape(-1).tolist()
zz_btm = zz[2].reshape(-1).tolist() + zz[3].reshape(-1).tolist()
## get top and bottom axes
ax_top = [axes[0], axes[1]]
ax_btm = [axes[2], axes[3]]
## normalize colors to minimum and maximum values of dataset
norm_top = matplotlib.colors.Normalize(vmin=min(zz_top), vmax=max(zz_top))
norm_btm = matplotlib.colors.Normalize(vmin=min(zz_btm), vmax=max(zz_btm))
cmap = cm.get_cmap(cmap, ncontours) # number of colors on colorbar
mtop = cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=cmap, norm=norm_top)
mbtm = cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=cmap, norm=norm_btm)
for m in (mtop, mbtm):
m.set_array([])
# ## create cax to draw colorbar in
# cax_top = fig.add_axes([0.9, 0.55, 0.05, 0.4])
# cax_btm = fig.add_axes([0.9, 0.05, 0.05, 0.4])
cbar_top = fig.colorbar(mtop, ax=ax_top, orientation='vertical', shrink=0.75, pad=0.2) #, cax=cax_top)
cbar_top.set_ticks(np.linspace(min(zz_top), max(zz_top), ncontours))
cbar_btm = fig.colorbar(mbtm, ax=ax_btm, orientation='vertical', shrink=0.75, pad=0.2) #, cax=cax_btm)
cbar_btm.set_ticks(np.linspace(min(zz_btm), max(zz_btm), ncontours))
plt.show()
plt.close(fig)
## orientation of colorbar = 'horizontal' if done by column
This topic is well covered but I still would like to propose another approach in a slightly different philosophy.
It is a bit more complex to set-up but it allow (in my opinion) a bit more flexibility. For example, one can play with the respective ratios of each subplots / colorbar:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from matplotlib.gridspec import GridSpec
# Define number of rows and columns you want in your figure
nrow = 2
ncol = 3
# Make a new figure
fig = plt.figure(constrained_layout=True)
# Design your figure properties
widths = [3,4,5,1]
gs = GridSpec(nrow, ncol + 1, figure=fig, width_ratios=widths)
# Fill your figure with desired plots
axes = []
for i in range(nrow):
for j in range(ncol):
axes.append(fig.add_subplot(gs[i, j]))
im = axes[-1].pcolormesh(np.random.random((10,10)))
# Shared colorbar
axes.append(fig.add_subplot(gs[:, ncol]))
fig.colorbar(im, cax=axes[-1])
plt.show()
The answers above are great, but most of them use the fig.colobar() method applied to a fig object. This example shows how to use the plt.colobar() function, applied directly to pyplot:
def shared_colorbar_example():
fig, axs = plt.subplots(nrows=3, ncols=3)
for ax in axs.flat:
plt.sca(ax)
color = np.random.random((10))
plt.scatter(range(10), range(10), c=color, cmap='viridis', vmin=0, vmax=1)
plt.colorbar(ax=axs.ravel().tolist(), shrink=0.6)
plt.show()
shared_colorbar_example()
Since most answers above demonstrated usage on 2D matrices, I went with a simple scatter plot. The shrink keyword is optional and resizes the colorbar.
If vmin and vmax are not specified this approach will automatically analyze all of the subplots for the minimum and maximum value to be used on the colorbar. The above approaches when using fig.colorbar(im) scan only the image passed as argument for min and max values of the colorbar.
Result:
In my plot, a secondary x axis is used to display the value of another variable for some data. Now, the original axis is log scaled. Unfortunaltely, the twinned axis puts the ticks (and the labels) referring to the linear scale of the original axis and not as intended to the log scale. How can this be overcome?
Here the code example that should put the ticks of the twinned axis in the same (absolute axes) position as the ones for the original axis:
def conv(x):
"""some conversion function"""
# ...
return x2
ax = plt.subplot(1,1,1)
ax.set_xscale('log')
# get the location of the ticks of ax
axlocs,axlabels = plt.xticks()
# twin axis and set limits as in ax
ax2 = ax.twiny()
ax2.set_xlim(ax.get_xlim())
#Set the ticks, should be set referring to the log scale of ax, but are set referring to the linear scale
ax2.set_xticks(axlocs)
# put the converted labels
ax2.set_xticklabels(map(conv,axlocs))
An alternative way would be (the ticks are then not set in the same position, but that doesn't matter):
from matplotlib.ticker import FuncFormatter
ax = plt.subplot(1,1,1)
ax.set_xscale('log')
ax2 = ax.twiny()
ax2.set_xlim(ax.get_xlim())
ax2.xaxis.set_major_formatter(FuncFormatter(lambda x,pos:conv(x)))
Both approaches work well as long as no log scale is used.
Perhaps there exists an easy fix. Is there something I missed in the documentation?
As a workaround, I tried to obtain the ax.transAxes coordinates of the ticks of ax and put the ticks at the very same position in ax2. But there does not exist something like
ax2.set_xticks(axlocs,transform=ax2.transAxes)
TypeError: set_xticks() got an unexpected keyword argument 'transform'
This has been asked a while ago, but I stumbled over it with the same question.
I eventually managed to solve the problem by introducing a logscaled (semilogx) transparent (alpha=0) dummy plot.
Example:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def conversion_func(x): # some arbitrary transformation function
return 2 * x**0.5 # from x to z
x = np.logspace(0, 5, 100)
y = np.sin(np.log(x))
fig = plt.figure()
ax = plt.gca()
ax.semilogx(x, y, 'k')
ax.set_xlim(x[0], x[-1]) # this is important in order that limits of both axes match
ax.set_ylabel("$y$")
ax.set_xlabel("$x$", color='C0')
ax.tick_params(axis='x', which='both', colors='C0')
ax.axvline(100, c='C0', lw=3)
ticks_x = np.logspace(0, 5, 5 + 1) # must span limits of first axis with clever spacing
ticks_z = conversion_func(ticks_x)
ax2 = ax.twiny() # get the twin axis
ax2.semilogx(ticks_z, np.ones_like(ticks_z), alpha=0) # transparent dummy plot
ax2.set_xlim(ticks_z[0], ticks_z[-1])
ax2.set_xlabel("$z \equiv f(x)$", color='C1')
ax2.xaxis.label.set_color('C1')
ax2.tick_params(axis='x', which='both', colors='C1')
ax2.axvline(20, ls='--', c='C1', lw=3) # z=20 indeed matches x=100 as desired
fig.show()
In the above example the vertical lines demonstrate that first and second axis are indeed shifted to one another as wanted. x = 100 gets shifted to z = 2*x**0.5 = 20. The colours are just to clarify which vertical line goes with which axis.
Don't need to cover them, just Eliminate the ticks!
d= [7,9,14,17,35,70];
j= [100,80,50,40,20,10];
plt.figure()
plt.xscale('log')
plt.plot(freq, freq*spec) #plot some spectrum
ax1 = plt.gca() #define my first axis
ax1.yaxis.set_ticks_position('both')
ax1.tick_params(axis='y',which='both',direction='in');
ax1.tick_params(axis='x',which='both',direction='in');
ax2 = ax1.twiny() #generates second axis (top)
ax2.set_xlim(ax1.get_xlim()); #same limits
plt.xscale('log') #make it log
ax2.set_xticks(freq[d]); #my own 'major' ticks OVERLAPS!!!
ax2.set_xticklabels(j); #change labels
ax2.tick_params(axis='x',which='major',direction='in');
ax2.tick_params(axis='x',which='minor',top=False); #REMOVE 'MINOR' TICKS
ax2.grid()
I think you can fix your issue by calling ax2.set_xscale('log').
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.semilogx(np.logspace(1.0, 5.0, 20), np.random.random([20]))
new_tick_locations = np.array([10., 100., 1000., 1.0e4])
def tick_function(X):
V = X / 1000.
return ["%.3f" % z for z in V]
ax2 = ax.twiny()
ax2.set_xscale('log')
ax2.set_xlim(ax.get_xlim())
ax2.set_xticks(new_tick_locations)
ax2.set_xticklabels(tick_function(new_tick_locations))
ax2.set_xlabel(r"Modified x-axis: $X/1000$")
I have a very simple question. I need to have a second x-axis on my plot and I want that this axis has a certain number of tics that correspond to certain position of the first axis.
Let's try with an example. Here I am plotting the dark matter mass as a function of the expansion factor, defined as 1/(1+z), that ranges from 0 to 1.
semilogy(1/(1+z),mass_acc_massive,'-',label='DM')
xlim(0,1)
ylim(1e8,5e12)
I would like to have another x-axis, on the top of my plot, showing the corresponding z for some values of the expansion factor. Is that possible? If yes, how can I have xtics ax
I'm taking a cue from the comments in #Dhara's answer, it sounds like you want to set a list of new_tick_locations by a function from the old x-axis to the new x-axis. The tick_function below takes in a numpy array of points, maps them to a new value and formats them:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(111)
ax2 = ax1.twiny()
X = np.linspace(0,1,1000)
Y = np.cos(X*20)
ax1.plot(X,Y)
ax1.set_xlabel(r"Original x-axis: $X$")
new_tick_locations = np.array([.2, .5, .9])
def tick_function(X):
V = 1/(1+X)
return ["%.3f" % z for z in V]
ax2.set_xlim(ax1.get_xlim())
ax2.set_xticks(new_tick_locations)
ax2.set_xticklabels(tick_function(new_tick_locations))
ax2.set_xlabel(r"Modified x-axis: $1/(1+X)$")
plt.show()
You can use twiny to create 2 x-axis scales. For Example:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(111)
ax2 = ax1.twiny()
a = np.cos(2*np.pi*np.linspace(0, 1, 60.))
ax1.plot(range(60), a)
ax2.plot(range(100), np.ones(100)) # Create a dummy plot
ax2.cla()
plt.show()
Ref: http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/faq/howto_faq.html#multiple-y-axis-scales
Output:
From matplotlib 3.1 onwards you may use ax.secondary_xaxis
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
x = np.linspace(1,13, num=301)
y = (np.sin(x)+1.01)*3000
# Define function and its inverse
f = lambda x: 1/(1+x)
g = lambda x: 1/x-1
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.semilogy(x, y, label='DM')
ax2 = ax.secondary_xaxis("top", functions=(f,g))
ax2.set_xlabel("1/(x+1)")
ax.set_xlabel("x")
plt.show()
If You want your upper axis to be a function of the lower axis tick-values you can do as below. Please note: sometimes get_xticks() will have a ticks outside of the visible range, which you have to allow for when converting.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ax1 = plt.subplots()
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(111)
ax1.plot(range(5), range(5))
ax1.grid(True)
ax2 = ax1.twiny()
ax2.set_xticks( ax1.get_xticks() )
ax2.set_xbound(ax1.get_xbound())
ax2.set_xticklabels([x * 2 for x in ax1.get_xticks()])
title = ax1.set_title("Upper x-axis ticks are lower x-axis ticks doubled!")
title.set_y(1.1)
fig.subplots_adjust(top=0.85)
fig.savefig("1.png")
Gives:
Answering your question in Dhara's answer comments: "I would like on the second x-axis these tics: (7,8,99) corresponding to the x-axis position 10, 30, 40. Is that possible in some way?"
Yes, it is.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(111)
a = np.cos(2*np.pi*np.linspace(0, 1, 60.))
ax1.plot(range(60), a)
ax1.set_xlim(0, 60)
ax1.set_xlabel("x")
ax1.set_ylabel("y")
ax2 = ax1.twiny()
ax2.set_xlabel("x-transformed")
ax2.set_xlim(0, 60)
ax2.set_xticks([10, 30, 40])
ax2.set_xticklabels(['7','8','99'])
plt.show()
You'll get:
I'm forced to post this as an answer instead of a comment due to low reputation.
I had a similar problem to Matteo. The difference being that I had no map from my first x-axis to my second x-axis, only the x-values themselves. So I wanted to set the data on my second x-axis directly, not the ticks, however, there is no axes.set_xdata. I was able to use Dhara's answer to do this with a modification:
ax2.lines = []
instead of using:
ax2.cla()
When in use also cleared my plot from ax1.