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matplotlib.figure.Figure

class matplotlib.figure.Figure(figsize=None, dpi=None, facecolor=None, edgecolor=None, linewidth=0.0, frameon=None, subplotpars=None, tight_layout=None, constrained_layout=None)[source]

The Figure instance supports callbacks through a callbacks attribute which is a CallbackRegistry instance. The events you can connect to are ‘dpi_changed’, and the callback will be called with func(fig) where fig is the Figure instance.

Attributes:
patch

The Rectangle instance representing the figure patch.

suppressComposite

For multiple figure images, the figure will make composite images depending on the renderer option_image_nocomposite function. If suppressComposite is a boolean, this will override the renderer.

Parameters:
figsize : 2-tuple of floats

(width, height) tuple in inches

dpi : float

Dots per inch

facecolor

The figure patch facecolor; defaults to rc figure.facecolor

edgecolor

The figure patch edge color; defaults to rc figure.edgecolor

linewidth : float

The figure patch edge linewidth; the default linewidth of the frame

frameon : bool

If False, suppress drawing the figure frame

subplotpars : SubplotParams

Subplot parameters, defaults to rc

tight_layout : bool

If False use subplotpars; if True adjust subplot parameters using tight_layout with default padding. When providing a dict containing the keys pad, w_pad, h_pad, and rect, the default tight_layout paddings will be overridden. Defaults to rc figure.autolayout.

constrained_layout : bool

If True use constrained layout to adjust positioning of plot elements. Like tight_layout, but designed to be more flexible. See Constrained Layout Guide for examples. (Note: does not work with subplot() or subplot2grid().) Defaults to rc figure.constrained_layout.use.

add_axes(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Add an axes at position rect [left, bottom, width, height] where all quantities are in fractions of figure width and height.

Parameters:
rect : sequence of float

A 4-length sequence of [left, bottom, width, height] quantities.

projection :

[‘aitoff’ | ‘hammer’ | ‘lambert’ | ‘mollweide’ | ‘polar’ | ‘rectilinear’], optional The projection type of the axes.

polar : boolean, optional

If True, equivalent to projection=’polar’.

**kwargs

This method also takes the keyword arguments for Axes.

Returns:
axes : Axes

The added axes.

Examples

A simple example:

rect = l,b,w,h
fig.add_axes(rect)
fig.add_axes(rect, frameon=False, facecolor='g')
fig.add_axes(rect, polar=True)
fig.add_axes(rect, projection='polar')
fig.add_axes(ax)

If the figure already has an axes with the same parameters, then it will simply make that axes current and return it. This behavior has been deprecated as of Matplotlib 2.1. Meanwhile, if you do not want this behavior (i.e., you want to force the creation of a new Axes), you must use a unique set of args and kwargs. The axes label attribute has been exposed for this purpose: if you want two axes that are otherwise identical to be added to the figure, make sure you give them unique labels:

fig.add_axes(rect, label='axes1')
fig.add_axes(rect, label='axes2')

In rare circumstances, add_axes may be called with a single argument, an Axes instance already created in the present figure but not in the figure’s list of axes. For example, if an axes has been removed with delaxes(), it can be restored with:

fig.add_axes(ax)

In all cases, the Axes instance will be returned.

add_axobserver(func)[source]

Whenever the axes state change, func(self) will be called.

add_subplot(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Add a subplot.

Parameters:
*args

Either a 3-digit integer or three separate integers describing the position of the subplot. If the three integers are R, C, and P in order, the subplot will take the Pth position on a grid with R rows and C columns.

projection : [‘aitoff’ | ‘hammer’ | ‘lambert’ | ‘mollweide’ | ‘polar’ | ‘rectilinear’], optional

The projection type of the axes.

polar : boolean, optional

If True, equivalent to projection=’polar’.

**kwargs

This method also takes the keyword arguments for Axes.

Returns:
axes : Axes

The axes of the subplot.

See also

matplotlib.pyplot.subplot
for an explanation of the args.

Notes

If the figure already has a subplot with key (args, kwargs) then it will simply make that subplot current and return it. This behavior is deprecated.

Examples

fig.add_subplot(111)

# equivalent but more general
fig.add_subplot(1, 1, 1)

# add subplot with red background
fig.add_subplot(212, facecolor='r')

# add a polar subplot
fig.add_subplot(111, projection='polar')

# add Subplot instance sub
fig.add_subplot(sub)
align_labels(axs=None)[source]

Align the xlabels and ylabels of subplots with the same subplots row or column (respectively) if label alignment is being done automatically (i.e. the label position is not manually set).

Alignment persists for draw events after this is called.

Parameters:
axs : list of Axes (None)

Optional list (or ndarray) of Axes to align the labels. Default is to align all axes on the figure.

align_xlabels(axs=None)[source]

Align the ylabels of subplots in the same subplot column if label alignment is being done automatically (i.e. the label position is not manually set).

Alignment persists for draw events after this is called.

If a label is on the bottom, it is aligned with labels on axes that also have their label on the bottom and that have the same bottom-most subplot row. If the label is on the top, it is aligned with labels on axes with the same top-most row.

Parameters:
axs : list of Axes (None)

Optional list of (or ndarray) Axes to align the xlabels. Default is to align all axes on the figure.

Notes

This assumes that axs are from the same GridSpec, so that their SubplotSpec positions correspond to figure positions.

Examples

Example with rotated xtick labels:

fig, axs = plt.subplots(1, 2)
for tick in axs[0].get_xticklabels():
    tick.set_rotation(55)
axs[0].set_xlabel('XLabel 0')
axs[1].set_xlabel('XLabel 1')
fig.align_xlabels()
align_ylabels(axs=None)[source]

Align the ylabels of subplots in the same subplot column if label alignment is being done automatically (i.e. the label position is not manually set).

Alignment persists for draw events after this is called.

If a label is on the left, it is aligned with labels on axes that also have their label on the left and that have the same left-most subplot column. If the label is on the right, it is aligned with labels on axes with the same right-most column.

Parameters:
axs : list of Axes (None)

Optional list (or ndarray) of Axes to align the ylabels. Default is to align all axes on the figure.

Notes

This assumes that axs are from the same GridSpec, so that their SubplotSpec positions correspond to figure positions.

Examples

Example with large yticks labels:

fig, axs = plt.subplots(2, 1)
axs[0].plot(np.arange(0, 1000, 50))
axs[0].set_ylabel('YLabel 0')
axs[1].set_ylabel('YLabel 1')
fig.align_ylabels()
autofmt_xdate(bottom=0.2, rotation=30, ha='right', which=None)[source]

Date ticklabels often overlap, so it is useful to rotate them and right align them. Also, a common use case is a number of subplots with shared xaxes where the x-axis is date data. The ticklabels are often long, and it helps to rotate them on the bottom subplot and turn them off on other subplots, as well as turn off xlabels.

Parameters:
bottom : scalar

The bottom of the subplots for subplots_adjust()

rotation : angle in degrees

The rotation of the xtick labels

ha : string

The horizontal alignment of the xticklabels

which : {None, ‘major’, ‘minor’, ‘both’}

Selects which ticklabels to rotate (default is None which works same as major)

axes

Read-only: list of axes in Figure

clear(keep_observers=False)[source]

Clear the figure – synonym for clf().

clf(keep_observers=False)[source]

Clear the figure.

Set keep_observers to True if, for example, a gui widget is tracking the axes in the figure.

colorbar(mappable, cax=None, ax=None, use_gridspec=True, **kw)[source]

Create a colorbar for a ScalarMappable instance, mappable.

Documentation for the pylab thin wrapper:

Add a colorbar to a plot.

Function signatures for the pyplot interface; all but the first are also method signatures for the colorbar() method:

colorbar(**kwargs)
colorbar(mappable, **kwargs)
colorbar(mappable, cax=cax, **kwargs)
colorbar(mappable, ax=ax, **kwargs)
Parameters:
mappable :

The Image, ContourSet, etc. to which the colorbar applies; this argument is mandatory for the Figure colorbar() method but optional for the pyplot colorbar() function, which sets the default to the current image.

cax : Axes object, optional

Axis into which the colorbar will be drawn

ax : Axes, list of Axes, optional

Parent axes 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.

use_gridspec : bool, optional

If cax is None, a new cax is created as an instance of Axes. If ax is an instance of Subplot and use_gridspec is True, cax is created as an instance of Subplot using the grid_spec module.

Returns:
:class:`~matplotlib.colorbar.Colorbar` instance

See also its base class, ColorbarBase. Call the set_label() method to label the colorbar.

Notes

Additional keyword arguments are of two kinds:

axes properties:

Property Description
orientation vertical or horizontal
fraction 0.15; fraction of original axes to use for colorbar
pad 0.05 if vertical, 0.15 if horizontal; fraction of original axes between colorbar and new image axes
shrink 1.0; fraction by which to multiply the size of the colorbar
aspect 20; ratio of long to short dimensions
anchor (0.0, 0.5) if vertical; (0.5, 1.0) if horizontal; the anchor point of the colorbar axes
panchor (1.0, 0.5) if vertical; (0.5, 0.0) if horizontal; the anchor point of the colorbar parent axes. If False, the parent axes’ anchor will be unchanged

colorbar properties:

Property Description
extend [ ‘neither’ | ‘both’ | ‘min’ | ‘max’ ] If not ‘neither’, make pointed end(s) for out-of- range values. These are set for a given colormap using the colormap set_under and set_over methods.
extendfrac [ None | ‘auto’ | length | lengths ] If set to None, both the minimum and maximum triangular colorbar extensions with have a length of 5% of the interior colorbar length (this is the default setting). If set to ‘auto’, makes the triangular colorbar extensions the same lengths as the interior boxes (when spacing is set to ‘uniform’) or the same lengths as the respective adjacent interior boxes (when spacing is set to ‘proportional’). If a scalar, indicates the length of both the minimum and maximum triangular colorbar extensions as a fraction of the interior colorbar length. A two-element sequence of fractions may also be given, indicating the lengths of the minimum and maximum colorbar extensions respectively as a fraction of the interior colorbar length.
extendrect bool If False the minimum and maximum colorbar extensions will be triangular (the default). If True the extensions will be rectangular.
spacing [ ‘uniform’ | ‘proportional’ ] Uniform spacing gives each discrete color the same space; proportional makes the space proportional to the data interval.
ticks [ None | list of ticks | Locator object ] If None, ticks are determined automatically from the input.
format [ None | format string | Formatter object ] If None, the ScalarFormatter is used. If a format string is given, e.g., ‘%.3f’, that is used. An alternative Formatter object may be given instead.
drawedges bool Whether to draw lines at color boundaries.

The following will probably be useful only in the context of indexed colors (that is, when the mappable has norm=NoNorm()), or other unusual circumstances.

Property Description
boundaries None or a sequence
values None or a sequence which must be of length 1 less than the sequence of boundaries. For each region delimited by adjacent entries in boundaries, the color mapped to the corresponding value in values will be used.

If mappable is a ContourSet, its extend kwarg is included automatically.

The shrink kwarg provides a simple way to scale the colorbar with respect to the axes. Note that if cax is specified it determines the size of the colorbar and shrink and aspect kwargs are ignored.

For more precise control, you can manually specify the positions of the axes objects in which the mappable and the colorbar are drawn. In this case, do not use any of the axes properties kwargs.

It is known that some vector graphics viewer (svg and pdf) renders white gaps between segments of the colorbar. This is due to bugs in the viewers not matplotlib. As a workaround the colorbar can be rendered with overlapping segments:

cbar = colorbar()
cbar.solids.set_edgecolor("face")
draw()

However this has negative consequences in other circumstances. Particularly with semi transparent images (alpha < 1) and colorbar extensions and is not enabled by default see (issue #1188).

contains(mouseevent)[source]

Test whether the mouse event occurred on the figure.

Returns True, {}.

delaxes(ax)[source]

Remove the Axes ax from the figure and update the current axes.

dpi
draw(renderer)[source]

Render the figure using matplotlib.backend_bases.RendererBase instance renderer.

draw_artist(a)[source]

Draw matplotlib.artist.Artist instance a only. This is available only after the figure is drawn.

execute_constrained_layout(renderer=None)[source]

Use layoutbox to determine pos positions within axes.

See also set_constrained_layout_pads

figimage(X, xo=0, yo=0, alpha=None, norm=None, cmap=None, vmin=None, vmax=None, origin=None, resize=False, **kwargs)[source]

Adds a non-resampled image to the figure.

call signatures:

figimage(X, **kwargs)

adds a non-resampled array X to the figure.

figimage(X, xo, yo)

with pixel offsets xo, yo,

X must be a float array:

  • If X is MxN, assume luminance (grayscale)
  • If X is MxNx3, assume RGB
  • If X is MxNx4, assume RGBA

Optional keyword arguments:

Keyword Description
resize a boolean, True or False. If “True”, then re-size the Figure to match the given image size.
xo or yo An integer, the x and y image offset in pixels
cmap a matplotlib.colors.Colormap instance, e.g., cm.jet. If None, default to the rc image.cmap value
norm a matplotlib.colors.Normalize instance. The default is normalization(). This scales luminance -> 0-1
vmin|vmax are used to scale a luminance image to 0-1. If either is None, the min and max of the luminance values will be used. Note if you pass a norm instance, the settings for vmin and vmax will be ignored.
alpha the alpha blending value, default is None
origin [ ‘upper’ | ‘lower’ ] Indicates where the [0,0] index of the array is in the upper left or lower left corner of the axes. Defaults to the rc image.origin value

figimage complements the axes image (imshow()) which will be resampled to fit the current axes. If you want a resampled image to fill the entire figure, you can define an Axes with extent [0,0,1,1].

An matplotlib.image.FigureImage instance is returned.

Additional kwargs are Artist kwargs passed on to FigureImage

figurePatch

Deprecated since version 2.1: The figurePatch function was deprecated in version 2.1. Use Figure.patch instead.

gca(**kwargs)[source]

Get the current axes, creating one if necessary

The following kwargs are supported for ensuring the returned axes adheres to the given projection etc., and for axes creation if the active axes does not exist:

Property Description
adjustable [ ‘box’ | ‘datalim’]
agg_filter a filter function, which takes a (m, n, 3) float array and a dpi value, and returns a (m, n, 3) array
alpha float (0.0 transparent through 1.0 opaque)
anchor [ ‘C’ | ‘SW’ | ‘S’ | ‘SE’ | ‘E’ | ‘NE’ | ‘N’ | ‘NW’ | ‘W’ ]
animated bool
aspect unknown
autoscale_on bool
autoscalex_on bool
autoscaley_on bool
axes_locator a callable object which takes an axes instance and renderer and returns a bbox.
axisbelow [ bool | ‘line’ ]
clip_box a Bbox instance
clip_on bool
clip_path [(Path, Transform) | Patch | None]
contains a callable function
facecolor color
fc color
figure Figure
frame_on bool
gid an id string
label object
navigate bool
navigate_mode unknown
path_effects AbstractPathEffect
picker [None | bool | float | callable]
position unknown
rasterization_zorder float or None
rasterized bool or None
sketch_params (scale: float, length: float, randomness: float)
snap bool or None
title unknown
transform Transform
url a url string
visible bool
xbound (lower: float, upper: float)
xlabel unknown
xlim (left: float, right: float)
xmargin float greater than -0.5
xscale [ ‘linear’ | ‘log’ | ‘symlog’ | ‘logit’ | … ]
xticklabels list of string labels
xticks list of tick locations.
ybound (lower: float, upper: float)
ylabel unknown
ylim (bottom: float, top: float)
ymargin float greater than -0.5
yscale [ ‘linear’ | ‘log’ | ‘symlog’ | ‘logit’ | … ]
yticklabels list of string labels
yticks list of tick locations.
zorder float
get_axes()[source]
get_children()[source]

Get a list of artists contained in the figure.

get_constrained_layout()[source]

Return a boolean: True means constrained layout is being used.

See Constrained Layout Guide

get_constrained_layout_pads(relative=False)[source]

Get padding for constrained_layout.

Returns a list of w_pad, h_pad in inches and wspace and hspace as fractions of the subplot.

See Constrained Layout Guide

Parameters:
relative : boolean

If True, then convert from inches to figure relative.

get_default_bbox_extra_artists()[source]
get_dpi()[source]

Return the dpi as a float.

get_edgecolor()[source]

Get the edge color of the Figure rectangle.

get_facecolor()[source]

Get the face color of the Figure rectangle.

get_figheight()[source]

Return the figheight as a float.

get_figwidth()[source]

Return the figwidth as a float.

get_frameon()[source]

Get the boolean indicating frameon.

get_size_inches()[source]

Returns the current size of the figure in inches (1in == 2.54cm) as an numpy array.

Returns:
size : ndarray

The size of the figure in inches

See also

matplotlib.Figure.set_size_inches

get_tight_layout()[source]

Return whether and how tight_layout is called when drawing.

get_tightbbox(renderer)[source]

Return a (tight) bounding box of the figure in inches.

It only accounts axes title, axis labels, and axis ticklabels. Needs improvement.

get_window_extent(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Return figure bounding box in display space; arguments are ignored.

ginput(n=1, timeout=30, show_clicks=True, mouse_add=1, mouse_pop=3, mouse_stop=2)[source]

Blocking call to interact with a figure.

Wait until the user clicks n times on the figure, and return the coordinates of each click in a list.

The buttons used for the various actions (adding points, removing points, terminating the inputs) can be overridden via the arguments mouse_add, mouse_pop and mouse_stop, that give the associated mouse button: 1 for left, 2 for middle, 3 for right.

Parameters:
n : int, optional, default: 1

Number of mouse clicks to accumulate. If negative, accumulate clicks until the input is terminated manually.

timeout : scalar, optional, default: 30

Number of seconds to wait before timing out. If zero or negative will never timeout.

show_clicks : bool, optional, default: False

If True, show a red cross at the location of each click.

mouse_add : int, one of (1, 2, 3), optional, default: 1 (left click)

Mouse button used to add points.

mouse_pop : int, one of (1, 2, 3), optional, default: 3 (right click)

Mouse button used to remove the most recently added point.

mouse_stop : int, one of (1, 2, 3), optional, default: 2 (middle click)

Mouse button used to stop input.

Returns:
points : list of tuples

A list of the clicked (x, y) coordinates.

Notes

The keyboard can also be used to select points in case your mouse does not have one or more of the buttons. The delete and backspace keys act like right clicking (i.e., remove last point), the enter key terminates input and any other key (not already used by the window manager) selects a point.

hold(b=None)[source]

Deprecated since version 2.0: The hold function was deprecated in version 2.0.

Set the hold state. If hold is None (default), toggle the hold state. Else set the hold state to boolean value b.

e.g.:

hold()      # toggle hold
hold(True)  # hold is on
hold(False) # hold is off

All “hold” machinery is deprecated.

init_layoutbox()[source]

initilaize the layoutbox for use in constrained_layout.

legend(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Place a legend on the figure.

To make a legend from existing artists on every axes:

legend()

To make a legend for a list of lines and labels:

legend( (line1, line2, line3),
        ('label1', 'label2', 'label3'),
        loc='upper right')

These can also be specified by keyword:

legend(handles=(line1, line2, line3),
      labels=('label1', 'label2', 'label3'),
      loc='upper right')
Parameters:
handles : sequence of Artist, optional

A list of Artists (lines, patches) to be added to the legend. Use this together with labels, if you need full control on what is shown in the legend and the automatic mechanism described above is not sufficient.

The length of handles and labels should be the same in this case. If they are not, they are truncated to the smaller length.

labels : sequence of strings, optional

A list of labels to show next to the artists. Use this together with handles, if you need full control on what is shown in the legend and the automatic mechanism described above is not sufficient.

Returns:
:class:`matplotlib.legend.Legend` instance
Other Parameters:
loc : int or string or pair of floats, default: ‘upper right’

The location of the legend. Possible codes are:

Location String Location Code
‘best’ 0
‘upper right’ 1
‘upper left’ 2
‘lower left’ 3
‘lower right’ 4
‘right’ 5
‘center left’ 6
‘center right’ 7
‘lower center’ 8
‘upper center’ 9
‘center’ 10

Alternatively can be a 2-tuple giving x, y of the lower-left corner of the legend in axes coordinates (in which case bbox_to_anchor will be ignored).

bbox_to_anchor : BboxBase or pair of floats

Specify any arbitrary location for the legend in bbox_transform coordinates (default Axes coordinates).

For example, to put the legend’s upper right hand corner in the center of the axes the following keywords can be used:

loc='upper right', bbox_to_anchor=(0.5, 0.5)
ncol : integer

The number of columns that the legend has. Default is 1.

prop : None or matplotlib.font_manager.FontProperties or dict

The font properties of the legend. If None (default), the current matplotlib.rcParams will be used.

fontsize : int or float or {‘xx-small’, ‘x-small’, ‘small’, ‘medium’, ‘large’, ‘x-large’, ‘xx-large’}

Controls the font size of the legend. If the value is numeric the size will be the absolute font size in points. String values are relative to the current default font size. This argument is only used if prop is not specified.

numpoints : None or int

The number of marker points in the legend when creating a legend entry for a Line2D (line). Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.numpoints"].

scatterpoints : None or int

The number of marker points in the legend when creating a legend entry for a PathCollection (scatter plot). Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.scatterpoints"].

scatteryoffsets : iterable of floats

The vertical offset (relative to the font size) for the markers created for a scatter plot legend entry. 0.0 is at the base the legend text, and 1.0 is at the top. To draw all markers at the same height, set to [0.5]. Default is [0.375, 0.5, 0.3125].

markerscale : None or int or float

The relative size of legend markers compared with the originally drawn ones. Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.markerscale"].

markerfirst : bool

If True, legend marker is placed to the left of the legend label. If False, legend marker is placed to the right of the legend label. Default is True.

frameon : None or bool

Control whether the legend should be drawn on a patch (frame). Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.frameon"].

fancybox : None or bool

Control whether round edges should be enabled around the FancyBboxPatch which makes up the legend’s background. Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.fancybox"].

shadow : None or bool

Control whether to draw a shadow behind the legend. Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.shadow"].

framealpha : None or float

Control the alpha transparency of the legend’s background. Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.framealpha"]. If shadow is activated and framealpha is None, the default value is ignored.

facecolor : None or “inherit” or a color spec

Control the legend’s background color. Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.facecolor"]. If "inherit", it will take rcParams["axes.facecolor"].

edgecolor : None or “inherit” or a color spec

Control the legend’s background patch edge color. Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.edgecolor"] If "inherit", it will take rcParams["axes.edgecolor"].

mode : {“expand”, None}

If mode is set to "expand" the legend will be horizontally expanded to fill the axes area (or bbox_to_anchor if defines the legend’s size).

bbox_transform : None or matplotlib.transforms.Transform

The transform for the bounding box (bbox_to_anchor). For a value of None (default) the Axes’ transAxes transform will be used.

title : str or None

The legend’s title. Default is no title (None).

borderpad : float or None

The fractional whitespace inside the legend border. Measured in font-size units. Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.borderpad"].

labelspacing : float or None

The vertical space between the legend entries. Measured in font-size units. Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.labelspacing"].

handlelength : float or None

The length of the legend handles. Measured in font-size units. Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.handlelength"].

handletextpad : float or None

The pad between the legend handle and text. Measured in font-size units. Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.handletextpad"].

borderaxespad : float or None

The pad between the axes and legend border. Measured in font-size units. Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.borderaxespad"].

columnspacing : float or None

The spacing between columns. Measured in font-size units. Default is None, which will take the value from rcParams["legend.columnspacing"].

handler_map : dict or None

The custom dictionary mapping instances or types to a legend handler. This handler_map updates the default handler map found at matplotlib.legend.Legend.get_legend_handler_map().

Notes

Not all kinds of artist are supported by the legend command. See Legend guide for details.

savefig(fname, **kwargs)[source]

Save the current figure.

Call signature:

savefig(fname, dpi=None, facecolor='w', edgecolor='w',
        orientation='portrait', papertype=None, format=None,
        transparent=False, bbox_inches=None, pad_inches=0.1,
        frameon=None)

The output formats available depend on the backend being used.

Parameters:
fname : str or file-like object

A string containing a path to a filename, or a Python file-like object, or possibly some backend-dependent object such as PdfPages.

If format is None and fname is a string, the output format is deduced from the extension of the filename. If the filename has no extension, the value of the rc parameter savefig.format is used.

If fname is not a string, remember to specify format to ensure that the correct backend is used.

Other Parameters:
dpi : [ None | scalar > 0 | ‘figure’]

The resolution in dots per inch. If None it will default to the value savefig.dpi in the matplotlibrc file. If ‘figure’ it will set the dpi to be the value of the figure.

facecolor : color spec or None, optional

the facecolor of the figure; if None, defaults to savefig.facecolor

edgecolor : color spec or None, optional

the edgecolor of the figure; if None, defaults to savefig.edgecolor

orientation : {‘landscape’, ‘portrait’}

not supported on all backends; currently only on postscript output

papertype : str

One of ‘letter’, ‘legal’, ‘executive’, ‘ledger’, ‘a0’ through ‘a10’, ‘b0’ through ‘b10’. Only supported for postscript output.

format : str

One of the file extensions supported by the active backend. Most backends support png, pdf, ps, eps and svg.

transparent : bool

If True, the axes patches will all be transparent; the figure patch will also be transparent unless facecolor and/or edgecolor are specified via kwargs. This is useful, for example, for displaying a plot on top of a colored background on a web page. The transparency of these patches will be restored to their original values upon exit of this function.

frameon : bool

If True, the figure patch will be colored, if False, the figure background will be transparent. If not provided, the rcParam ‘savefig.frameon’ will be used.

bbox_inches : str or Bbox, optional

Bbox in inches. Only the given portion of the figure is saved. If ‘tight’, try to figure out the tight bbox of the figure. If None, use savefig.bbox

pad_inches : scalar, optional

Amount of padding around the figure when bbox_inches is ‘tight’. If None, use savefig.pad_inches

bbox_extra_artists : list of Artist, optional

A list of extra artists that will be considered when the tight bbox is calculated.

sca(a)[source]

Set the current axes to be a and return a.

set_canvas(canvas)[source]

Set the canvas that contains the figure

ACCEPTS: a FigureCanvas instance

set_constrained_layout(constrained)[source]

Set whether constrained_layout is used upon drawing. If None, the rcParams[‘figure.constrained_layout.use’] value will be used.

When providing a dict containing the keys w_pad, h_pad the default constrained_layout paddings will be overridden. These pads are in inches and default to 3.0/72.0. w_pad is the width padding and h_pad is the height padding.

ACCEPTS: [True | False | dict | None ]

See Constrained Layout Guide

set_constrained_layout_pads(**kwargs)[source]

Set padding for constrained_layout. Note the kwargs can be passed as a dictionary fig.set_constrained_layout(**paddict).

See Constrained Layout Guide

Parameters:
w_pad : scalar

Width padding in inches. This is the pad around axes and is meant to make sure there is enough room for fonts to look good. Defaults to 3 pts = 0.04167 inches

h_pad : scalar

Height padding in inches. Defaults to 3 pts.

wspace: scalar

Width padding between subplots, expressed as a fraction of the subplot width. The total padding ends up being w_pad + wspace.

hspace: scalar

Height padding between subplots, expressed as a fraction of the subplot width. The total padding ends up being h_pad + hspace.

set_dpi(val)[source]

Set the dots-per-inch of the figure

ACCEPTS: float

set_edgecolor(color)[source]

Set the edge color of the Figure rectangle

ACCEPTS: any matplotlib color - see help(colors)

set_facecolor(color)[source]

Set the face color of the Figure rectangle

ACCEPTS: any matplotlib color - see help(colors)

set_figheight(val, forward=True)[source]

Set the height of the figure in inches

ACCEPTS: float

set_figwidth(val, forward=True)[source]

Set the width of the figure in inches

ACCEPTS: float

set_frameon(b)[source]

Set whether the figure frame (background) is displayed or invisible

ACCEPTS: boolean

set_size_inches(w, h=None, forward=True)[source]

Set the figure size in inches (1in == 2.54cm)

Usage

fig.set_size_inches(w, h)  # OR
fig.set_size_inches((w, h))

optional kwarg forward=True will cause the canvas size to be automatically updated; e.g., you can resize the figure window from the shell

ACCEPTS: a w, h tuple with w, h in inches

See also

matplotlib.Figure.get_size_inches

set_tight_layout(tight)[source]

Set whether and how tight_layout is called when drawing.

Parameters:
tight : bool or dict with keys “pad”, “w_pad”, “h_pad”, “rect” or None

If a bool, sets whether to call tight_layout upon drawing. If None, use the figure.autolayout rcparam instead. If a dict, pass it as kwargs to tight_layout, overriding the default paddings.

show(warn=True)[source]

If using a GUI backend with pyplot, display the figure window.

If the figure was not created using figure(), it will lack a FigureManagerBase, and will raise an AttributeError.

Parameters:
warm : bool

If True, issue warning when called on a non-GUI backend

Notes

For non-GUI backends, this does nothing, in which case a warning will be issued if warn is True (default).

subplots(nrows=1, ncols=1, sharex=False, sharey=False, squeeze=True, subplot_kw=None, gridspec_kw=None)[source]

Add a set of subplots to this figure.

Parameters:
nrows, ncols : int, default: 1

Number of rows/cols of the subplot grid.

sharex, sharey : bool or {‘none’, ‘all’, ‘row’, ‘col’}, default: False

Controls sharing of properties among x (sharex) or y (sharey) axes:

  • True or ‘all’: x- or y-axis will be shared among all subplots.
  • False or ‘none’: each subplot x- or y-axis will be independent.
  • ‘row’: each subplot row will share an x- or y-axis.
  • ‘col’: each subplot column will share an x- or y-axis.

When subplots have a shared x-axis along a column, only the x tick labels of the bottom subplot are visible. Similarly, when subplots have a shared y-axis along a row, only the y tick labels of the first column subplot are visible.

squeeze : bool, default: True
  • If True, extra dimensions are squeezed out from the returned axis object:

    • if only one subplot is constructed (nrows=ncols=1), the resulting single Axes object is returned as a scalar.
    • for Nx1 or 1xN subplots, the returned object is a 1D numpy object array of Axes objects are returned as numpy 1D arrays.
    • for NxM, subplots with N>1 and M>1 are returned as a 2D arrays.
  • If False, no squeezing at all is done: the returned Axes object is always a 2D array containing Axes instances, even if it ends up being 1x1.

subplot_kw : dict, default: {}

Dict with keywords passed to the add_subplot() call used to create each subplots.

gridspec_kw : dict, default: {}

Dict with keywords passed to the GridSpec constructor used to create the grid the subplots are placed on.

Returns:
ax : single Axes object or array of Axes objects

The added axes. The dimensions of the resulting array can be controlled with the squeeze keyword, see above.

See also

pyplot.subplots
pyplot API; docstring includes examples.
subplots_adjust(*args, **kwargs)[source]

Call signature:

subplots_adjust(left=None, bottom=None, right=None, top=None,
                    wspace=None, hspace=None)

Update the SubplotParams with kwargs (defaulting to rc when None) and update the subplot locations.

suptitle(t, **kwargs)[source]

Add a centered title to the figure.

kwargs are matplotlib.text.Text properties. Using figure coordinates, the defaults are:

x : 0.5
The x location of the text in figure coords
y : 0.98
The y location of the text in figure coords
horizontalalignment : ‘center’
The horizontal alignment of the text
verticalalignment : ‘top’
The vertical alignment of the text

If the fontproperties keyword argument is given then the rcParams defaults for fontsize (figure.titlesize) and fontweight (figure.titleweight) will be ignored in favour of the FontProperties defaults.

A matplotlib.text.Text instance is returned.

Example:

fig.suptitle('this is the figure title', fontsize=12)
text(x, y, s, *args, **kwargs)[source]

Add text to figure.

Call signature:

text(x, y, s, fontdict=None, **kwargs)

Add text to figure at location x, y (relative 0-1 coords). See text() for the meaning of the other arguments.

kwargs control the Text properties:

Property Description
agg_filter a filter function, which takes a (m, n, 3) float array and a dpi value, and returns a (m, n, 3) array
alpha float (0.0 transparent through 1.0 opaque)
animated bool
backgroundcolor any matplotlib color
bbox FancyBboxPatch prop dict
clip_box a matplotlib.transforms.Bbox instance
clip_on bool
clip_path [ (Path, Transform) | Patch | None ]
color any matplotlib color
contains a callable function
family or fontfamily or fontname or name [FONTNAME | ‘serif’ | ‘sans-serif’ | ‘cursive’ | ‘fantasy’ | ‘monospace’ ]
figure a Figure instance
fontproperties or font_properties a matplotlib.font_manager.FontProperties instance
gid an id string
horizontalalignment or ha [ ‘center’ | ‘right’ | ‘left’ ]
label object
linespacing float (multiple of font size)
multialignment or ma [‘left’ | ‘right’ | ‘center’ ]
path_effects AbstractPathEffect
picker [None | bool | float | callable]
position (x,y)
rasterized bool or None
rotation [ angle in degrees | ‘vertical’ | ‘horizontal’ ]
rotation_mode [ None | “default” | “anchor” ]
size or fontsize [size in points | ‘xx-small’ | ‘x-small’ | ‘small’ | ‘medium’ | ‘large’ | ‘x-large’ | ‘xx-large’ ]
sketch_params (scale: float, length: float, randomness: float)
snap bool or None
stretch or fontstretch [a numeric value in range 0-1000 | ‘ultra-condensed’ | ‘extra-condensed’ | ‘condensed’ | ‘semi-condensed’ | ‘normal’ | ‘semi-expanded’ | ‘expanded’ | ‘extra-expanded’ | ‘ultra-expanded’ ]
style or fontstyle [ ‘normal’ | ‘italic’ | ‘oblique’]
text string or anything printable with ‘%s’ conversion.
transform Transform
url a url string
usetex bool or None
variant or fontvariant [ ‘normal’ | ‘small-caps’ ]
verticalalignment or va [ ‘center’ | ‘top’ | ‘bottom’ | ‘baseline’ ]
visible bool
weight or fontweight [a numeric value in range 0-1000 | ‘ultralight’ | ‘light’ | ‘normal’ | ‘regular’ | ‘book’ | ‘medium’ | ‘roman’ | ‘semibold’ | ‘demibold’ | ‘demi’ | ‘bold’ | ‘heavy’ | ‘extra bold’ | ‘black’ ]
wrap bool
x float
y float
zorder float
tight_layout(renderer=None, pad=1.08, h_pad=None, w_pad=None, rect=None)[source]

Adjust subplot parameters to give specified padding.

Parameters:
pad : float

padding between the figure edge and the edges of subplots, as a fraction of the font-size.

h_pad, w_pad : float, optional

padding (height/width) between edges of adjacent subplots. Defaults to pad_inches.

rect : tuple (left, bottom, right, top), optional

a rectangle (left, bottom, right, top) in the normalized figure coordinate that the whole subplots area (including labels) will fit into. Default is (0, 0, 1, 1).

waitforbuttonpress(timeout=-1)[source]

Blocking call to interact with the figure.

This will return True is a key was pressed, False if a mouse button was pressed and None if timeout was reached without either being pressed.

If timeout is negative, does not timeout.