You are reading an old version of the documentation (v2.2.3). For the latest version see https://matplotlib.org/stable/gallery/pie_and_polar_charts/polar_scatter.html
Version 2.2.3
matplotlib
Fork me on GitHub

Table Of Contents

Related Topics

Scatter plot on polar axis

Size increases radially in this example and color increases with angle (just to verify the symbols are being scattered correctly).

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt


# Fixing random state for reproducibility
np.random.seed(19680801)

# Compute areas and colors
N = 150
r = 2 * np.random.rand(N)
theta = 2 * np.pi * np.random.rand(N)
area = 200 * r**2
colors = theta

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='polar')
c = ax.scatter(theta, r, c=colors, s=area, cmap='hsv', alpha=0.75)
../../_images/sphx_glr_polar_scatter_001.png

Scatter plot on polar axis, with offset origin

The main difference with the previous plot is the configuration of the origin radius, producing an annulus. Additionally, the theta zero location is set to rotate the plot.

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, polar=True)
c = ax.scatter(theta, r, c=colors, s=area, cmap='hsv', alpha=0.75)

ax.set_rorigin(-2.5)
ax.set_theta_zero_location('W', offset=10)
../../_images/sphx_glr_polar_scatter_002.png

Scatter plot on polar axis confined to a sector

The main difference with the previous plots is the configuration of the theta start and end limits, producing a sector instead of a full circle.

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, polar=True)
c = ax.scatter(theta, r, c=colors, s=area, cmap='hsv', alpha=0.75)

ax.set_thetamin(45)
ax.set_thetamax(135)

plt.show()
../../_images/sphx_glr_polar_scatter_003.png