matplotlib.figure#

matplotlib.figure implements the following classes:

Figure

Top level Artist, which holds all plot elements. Many methods are implemented in FigureBase.

SubFigure

A logical figure inside a figure, usually added to a figure (or parent SubFigure) with Figure.add_subfigure or Figure.subfigures methods (provisional API v3.4).

Figures are typically created using pyplot methods figure, subplots, and subplot_mosaic.

fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(2, 2), facecolor='lightskyblue',
                       layout='constrained')
fig.suptitle('Figure')
ax.set_title('Axes', loc='left', fontstyle='oblique', fontsize='medium')

(Source code, 2x.png, png)

Some situations call for directly instantiating a Figure class, usually inside an application of some sort (see Embedding Matplotlib in graphical user interfaces for a list of examples) . More information about Figures can be found at Introduction to Figures.

Figure#

Figure class#

Figure

The top level container for all the plot elements.

Adding Axes and SubFigures#

Figure.add_axes

Add an Axes to the figure.

Figure.add_subplot

Add an Axes to the figure as part of a subplot arrangement.

Figure.subplots

Add a set of subplots to this figure.

Figure.subplot_mosaic

Build a layout of Axes based on ASCII art or nested lists.

Figure.add_gridspec

Low-level API for creating a GridSpec that has this figure as a parent.

Figure.get_axes

List of Axes in the Figure.

Figure.axes

List of Axes in the Figure.

Figure.delaxes

Remove the Axes ax from the figure; update the current Axes.

Figure.subfigures

Add a set of subfigures to this figure or subfigure.

Figure.add_subfigure

Add a SubFigure to the figure as part of a subplot arrangement.

Saving#

Figure.savefig

Save the current figure as an image or vector graphic to a file.

Annotating#

Figure.colorbar

Add a colorbar to a plot.

Figure.legend

Place a legend on the figure.

Figure.text

Add text to figure.

Figure.suptitle

Add a centered suptitle to the figure.

Figure.get_suptitle

Return the suptitle as string or an empty string if not set.

Figure.supxlabel

Add a centered supxlabel to the figure.

Figure.get_supxlabel

Return the supxlabel as string or an empty string if not set.

Figure.supylabel

Add a centered supylabel to the figure.

Figure.get_supylabel

Return the supylabel as string or an empty string if not set.

Figure.align_labels

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).

Figure.align_xlabels

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

Figure.align_ylabels

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).

Figure.align_titles

Align the titles of subplots in the same subplot row if title alignment is being done automatically (i.e. the title position is not manually set).

Figure.autofmt_xdate

Date ticklabels often overlap, so it is useful to rotate them and right align them.

Figure geometry#

Figure.set_size_inches

Set the figure size in inches.

Figure.get_size_inches

Return the current size of the figure in inches.

Figure.set_figheight

Set the height of the figure in inches.

Figure.get_figheight

Return the figure height in inches.

Figure.set_figwidth

Set the width of the figure in inches.

Figure.get_figwidth

Return the figure width in inches.

Figure.dpi

The resolution in dots per inch.

Figure.set_dpi

Set the resolution of the figure in dots-per-inch.

Figure.set_dpi

Set the resolution of the figure in dots-per-inch.

Subplot layout#

Figure.subplots_adjust

Adjust the subplot layout parameters.

Figure.set_layout_engine

Set the layout engine for this figure.

Figure.get_layout_engine

Discouraged or deprecated#

Figure.tight_layout

Adjust the padding between and around subplots.

Figure.set_tight_layout

[Deprecated] Set whether and how Figure.tight_layout is called when drawing.

Figure.get_tight_layout

Return whether Figure.tight_layout is called when drawing.

Figure.set_constrained_layout

[Deprecated] Set whether constrained_layout is used upon drawing.

Figure.get_constrained_layout

Return whether constrained layout is being used.

Figure.set_constrained_layout_pads

[Deprecated] Set padding for constrained_layout.

Figure.get_constrained_layout_pads

[Deprecated] Get padding for constrained_layout.

Interactive#

Figure.ginput

Blocking call to interact with a figure.

Figure.add_axobserver

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

Figure.waitforbuttonpress

Blocking call to interact with the figure.

Figure.pick

Process a pick event.

Modifying appearance#

Figure.set_frameon

Set the figure's background patch visibility, i.e. whether the figure background will be drawn.

Figure.get_frameon

Return the figure's background patch visibility, i.e. whether the figure background will be drawn.

Figure.set_linewidth

Set the line width of the Figure rectangle.

Figure.get_linewidth

Get the line width of the Figure rectangle.

Figure.set_facecolor

Set the face color of the Figure rectangle.

Figure.get_facecolor

Get the face color of the Figure rectangle.

Figure.set_edgecolor

Set the edge color of the Figure rectangle.

Figure.get_edgecolor

Get the edge color of the Figure rectangle.

Adding and getting Artists#

Figure.add_artist

Add an Artist to the figure.

Figure.get_children

Get a list of artists contained in the figure.

Figure.figimage

Add a non-resampled image to the figure.

Getting and modifying state#

Figure.clear

Clear the figure.

Figure.gca

Get the current Axes.

Figure.sca

Set the current Axes to be a and return a.

Figure.get_tightbbox

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

Figure.get_window_extent

Get the artist's bounding box in display space.

Figure.show

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

Figure.set_canvas

Set the canvas that contains the figure

Figure.draw

Draw the Artist (and its children) using the given renderer.

Figure.draw_without_rendering

Draw the figure with no output.

Figure.draw_artist

Draw Artist a only.

SubFigure#

Matplotlib has the concept of a SubFigure, which is a logical figure inside a parent Figure. It has many of the same methods as the parent. See Nested Axes layouts.

(Source code, 2x.png, png)

SubFigure class#

SubFigure

Logical figure that can be placed inside a figure.

Adding Axes and SubFigures#

SubFigure.add_axes

Add an Axes to the figure.

SubFigure.add_subplot

Add an Axes to the figure as part of a subplot arrangement.

SubFigure.subplots

Add a set of subplots to this figure.

SubFigure.subplot_mosaic

Build a layout of Axes based on ASCII art or nested lists.

SubFigure.add_gridspec

Low-level API for creating a GridSpec that has this figure as a parent.

SubFigure.delaxes

Remove the Axes ax from the figure; update the current Axes.

SubFigure.add_subfigure

Add a SubFigure to the figure as part of a subplot arrangement.

SubFigure.subfigures

Add a set of subfigures to this figure or subfigure.

Annotating#

SubFigure.colorbar

Add a colorbar to a plot.

SubFigure.legend

Place a legend on the figure.

SubFigure.text

Add text to figure.

SubFigure.suptitle

Add a centered suptitle to the figure.

SubFigure.get_suptitle

Return the suptitle as string or an empty string if not set.

SubFigure.supxlabel

Add a centered supxlabel to the figure.

SubFigure.get_supxlabel

Return the supxlabel as string or an empty string if not set.

SubFigure.supylabel

Add a centered supylabel to the figure.

SubFigure.get_supylabel

Return the supylabel as string or an empty string if not set.

SubFigure.align_labels

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).

SubFigure.align_xlabels

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

SubFigure.align_ylabels

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).

SubFigure.align_titles

Align the titles of subplots in the same subplot row if title alignment is being done automatically (i.e. the title position is not manually set).

Adding and getting Artists#

SubFigure.add_artist

Add an Artist to the figure.

SubFigure.get_children

Get a list of artists contained in the figure.

Modifying appearance#

SubFigure.set_frameon

Set the figure's background patch visibility, i.e. whether the figure background will be drawn.

SubFigure.get_frameon

Return the figure's background patch visibility, i.e. whether the figure background will be drawn.

SubFigure.set_linewidth

Set the line width of the Figure rectangle.

SubFigure.get_linewidth

Get the line width of the Figure rectangle.

SubFigure.set_facecolor

Set the face color of the Figure rectangle.

SubFigure.get_facecolor

Get the face color of the Figure rectangle.

SubFigure.set_edgecolor

Set the edge color of the Figure rectangle.

SubFigure.get_edgecolor

Get the edge color of the Figure rectangle.

Passthroughs#

SubFigure.set_dpi

Set the resolution of parent figure in dots-per-inch.

SubFigure.get_dpi

Return the resolution of the parent figure in dots-per-inch as a float.

FigureBase parent class#

class matplotlib.figure.FigureBase(**kwargs)[source]#

Base class for Figure and SubFigure containing the methods that add artists to the figure or subfigure, create Axes, etc.

add_artist(artist, clip=False)[source]#

Add an Artist to the figure.

Usually artists are added to Axes objects using Axes.add_artist; this method can be used in the rare cases where one needs to add artists directly to the figure instead.

Parameters:
artistArtist

The artist to add to the figure. If the added artist has no transform previously set, its transform will be set to figure.transSubfigure.

clipbool, default: False

Whether the added artist should be clipped by the figure patch.

Returns:
Artist

The added artist.

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

Add an Axes to the figure.

Call signatures:

add_axes(rect, projection=None, polar=False, **kwargs)
add_axes(ax)
Parameters:
recttuple (left, bottom, width, height)

The dimensions (left, bottom, width, height) of the new Axes. All quantities are in fractions of figure width and height.

projection{None, 'aitoff', 'hammer', 'lambert', 'mollweide', 'polar', 'rectilinear', str}, optional

The projection type of the Axes. str is the name of a custom projection, see projections. The default None results in a 'rectilinear' projection.

polarbool, default: False

If True, equivalent to projection='polar'.

axes_classsubclass type of Axes, optional

The axes.Axes subclass that is instantiated. This parameter is incompatible with projection and polar. See axisartist for examples.

sharex, shareyAxes, optional

Share the x or y axis with sharex and/or sharey. The axis will have the same limits, ticks, and scale as the axis of the shared Axes.

labelstr

A label for the returned Axes.

Returns:
Axes, or a subclass of Axes

The returned Axes class depends on the projection used. It is Axes if rectilinear projection is used and projections.polar.PolarAxes if polar projection is used.

Other Parameters:
**kwargs

This method also takes the keyword arguments for the returned Axes class. The keyword arguments for the rectilinear Axes class Axes can be found in the following table but there might also be other keyword arguments if another projection is used, see the actual Axes class.

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 and two offsets from the bottom left corner of the image

alpha

scalar or None

anchor

(float, float) or {'C', 'SW', 'S', 'SE', 'E', 'NE', ...}

animated

bool

aspect

{'auto', 'equal'} or float

autoscale_on

bool

autoscalex_on

unknown

autoscaley_on

unknown

axes_locator

Callable[[Axes, Renderer], Bbox]

axisbelow

bool or 'line'

box_aspect

float or None

clip_box

BboxBase or None

clip_on

bool

clip_path

Patch or (Path, Transform) or None

facecolor or fc

color

figure

Figure

forward_navigation_events

bool or "auto"

frame_on

bool

gid

str

in_layout

bool

label

object

mouseover

bool

navigate

bool

navigate_mode

unknown

path_effects

list of AbstractPathEffect

picker

None or bool or float or callable

position

[left, bottom, width, height] or Bbox

prop_cycle

Cycler

rasterization_zorder

float or None

rasterized

bool

sketch_params

(scale: float, length: float, randomness: float)

snap

bool or None

subplotspec

unknown

title

str

transform

Transform

url

str

visible

bool

xbound

(lower: float, upper: float)

xlabel

str

xlim

(left: float, right: float)

xmargin

float greater than -0.5

xscale

unknown

xticklabels

unknown

xticks

unknown

ybound

(lower: float, upper: float)

ylabel

str

ylim

(bottom: float, top: float)

ymargin

float greater than -0.5

yscale

unknown

yticklabels

unknown

yticks

unknown

zorder

float

Notes

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.

Examples

Some simple examples:

rect = l, b, w, h
fig = plt.figure()
fig.add_axes(rect)
fig.add_axes(rect, frameon=False, facecolor='g')
fig.add_axes(rect, polar=True)
ax = fig.add_axes(rect, projection='polar')
fig.delaxes(ax)
fig.add_axes(ax)
add_gridspec(nrows=1, ncols=1, **kwargs)[source]#

Low-level API for creating a GridSpec that has this figure as a parent.

This is a low-level API, allowing you to create a gridspec and subsequently add subplots based on the gridspec. Most users do not need that freedom and should use the higher-level methods subplots or subplot_mosaic.

Parameters:
nrowsint, default: 1

Number of rows in grid.

ncolsint, default: 1

Number of columns in grid.

Returns:
GridSpec
Other Parameters:
**kwargs

Keyword arguments are passed to GridSpec.

Examples

Adding a subplot that spans two rows:

fig = plt.figure()
gs = fig.add_gridspec(2, 2)
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(gs[0, 0])
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(gs[1, 0])
# spans two rows:
ax3 = fig.add_subplot(gs[:, 1])
add_subfigure(subplotspec, **kwargs)[source]#

Add a SubFigure to the figure as part of a subplot arrangement.

Parameters:
subplotspecgridspec.SubplotSpec

Defines the region in a parent gridspec where the subfigure will be placed.

Returns:
SubFigure
Other Parameters:
**kwargs

Are passed to the SubFigure object.

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

Add an Axes to the figure as part of a subplot arrangement.

Call signatures:

add_subplot(nrows, ncols, index, **kwargs)
add_subplot(pos, **kwargs)
add_subplot(ax)
add_subplot()
Parameters:
*argsint, (int, int, index), or SubplotSpec, default: (1, 1, 1)

The position of the subplot described by one of

  • Three integers (nrows, ncols, index). The subplot will take the index position on a grid with nrows rows and ncols columns. index starts at 1 in the upper left corner and increases to the right. index can also be a two-tuple specifying the (first, last) indices (1-based, and including last) of the subplot, e.g., fig.add_subplot(3, 1, (1, 2)) makes a subplot that spans the upper 2/3 of the figure.

  • A 3-digit integer. The digits are interpreted as if given separately as three single-digit integers, i.e. fig.add_subplot(235) is the same as fig.add_subplot(2, 3, 5). Note that this can only be used if there are no more than 9 subplots.

  • A SubplotSpec.

In rare circumstances, add_subplot may be called with a single argument, a subplot Axes instance already created in the present figure but not in the figure's list of Axes.

projection{None, 'aitoff', 'hammer', 'lambert', 'mollweide', 'polar', 'rectilinear', str}, optional

The projection type of the subplot (Axes). str is the name of a custom projection, see projections. The default None results in a 'rectilinear' projection.

polarbool, default: False

If True, equivalent to projection='polar'.

axes_classsubclass type of Axes, optional

The axes.Axes subclass that is instantiated. This parameter is incompatible with projection and polar. See axisartist for examples.

sharex, shareyAxes, optional

Share the x or y axis with sharex and/or sharey. The axis will have the same limits, ticks, and scale as the axis of the shared Axes.

labelstr

A label for the returned Axes.

Returns:
Axes

The Axes of the subplot. The returned Axes can actually be an instance of a subclass, such as projections.polar.PolarAxes for polar projections.

Other Parameters:
**kwargs

This method also takes the keyword arguments for the returned Axes base class; except for the figure argument. The keyword arguments for the rectilinear base class Axes can be found in the following table but there might also be other keyword arguments if another projection is used.

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 and two offsets from the bottom left corner of the image

alpha

scalar or None

anchor

(float, float) or {'C', 'SW', 'S', 'SE', 'E', 'NE', ...}

animated

bool

aspect

{'auto', 'equal'} or float

autoscale_on

bool

autoscalex_on

unknown

autoscaley_on

unknown

axes_locator

Callable[[Axes, Renderer], Bbox]

axisbelow

bool or 'line'

box_aspect

float or None

clip_box

BboxBase or None

clip_on

bool

clip_path

Patch or (Path, Transform) or None

facecolor or fc

color

figure

Figure

forward_navigation_events

bool or "auto"

frame_on

bool

gid

str

in_layout

bool

label

object

mouseover

bool

navigate

bool

navigate_mode

unknown

path_effects

list of AbstractPathEffect

picker

None or bool or float or callable

position

[left, bottom, width, height] or Bbox

prop_cycle

Cycler

rasterization_zorder

float or None

rasterized

bool

sketch_params

(scale: float, length: float, randomness: float)

snap

bool or None

subplotspec

unknown

title

str

transform

Transform

url

str

visible

bool

xbound

(lower: float, upper: float)

xlabel

str

xlim

(left: float, right: float)

xmargin

float greater than -0.5

xscale

unknown

xticklabels

unknown

xticks

unknown

ybound

(lower: float, upper: float)

ylabel

str

ylim

(bottom: float, top: float)

ymargin

float greater than -0.5

yscale

unknown

yticklabels

unknown

yticks

unknown

zorder

float

Examples

fig = plt.figure()

fig.add_subplot(231)
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(2, 3, 1)  # equivalent but more general

fig.add_subplot(232, frameon=False)  # subplot with no frame
fig.add_subplot(233, projection='polar')  # polar subplot
fig.add_subplot(234, sharex=ax1)  # subplot sharing x-axis with ax1
fig.add_subplot(235, facecolor="red")  # red subplot

ax1.remove()  # delete ax1 from the figure
fig.add_subplot(ax1)  # add ax1 back to the figure
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:
axslist of Axes

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

align_titles(axs=None)[source]#

Align the titles of subplots in the same subplot row if title alignment is being done automatically (i.e. the title position is not manually set).

Alignment persists for draw events after this is called.

Parameters:
axslist of Axes

Optional list of (or ndarray) Axes to align the titles. 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 titles:

fig, axs = plt.subplots(1, 2)
axs[0].set_aspect('equal')
axs[0].set_title('Title 0')
axs[1].set_title('Title 1')
fig.align_titles()
align_xlabels(axs=None)[source]#

Align the xlabels of subplots in the same subplot row 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:
axslist of Axes

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:
axslist of Axes

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='major')[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 x-axis 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:
bottomfloat, default: 0.2

The bottom of the subplots for subplots_adjust.

rotationfloat, default: 30 degrees

The rotation angle of the xtick labels in degrees.

ha{'left', 'center', 'right'}, default: 'right'

The horizontal alignment of the xticklabels.

which{'major', 'minor', 'both'}, default: 'major'

Selects which ticklabels to rotate.

clear(keep_observers=False)[source]#

Clear the figure.

Parameters:
keep_observersbool, default: False

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

clf(keep_observers=False)[source]#

[Discouraged] Alias for the clear() method.

Discouraged

The use of clf() is discouraged. Use clear() instead.

Parameters:
keep_observersbool, default: False

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, **kwargs)[source]#

Add a colorbar to a plot.

Parameters:
mappable

The matplotlib.cm.ScalarMappable (i.e., AxesImage, ContourSet, etc.) described by this colorbar. This argument is mandatory for the Figure.colorbar method but optional for the pyplot.colorbar function, which sets the default to the current image.

Note that one can create a ScalarMappable "on-the-fly" to generate colorbars not attached to a previously drawn artist, e.g.

fig.colorbar(cm.ScalarMappable(norm=norm, cmap=cmap), ax=ax)
caxAxes, optional

Axes into which the colorbar will be drawn. If None, then a new Axes is created and the space for it will be stolen from the Axes(s) specified in ax.

axAxes or iterable or numpy.ndarray of Axes, optional

The one or more parent Axes from which space for a new colorbar Axes will be stolen. This parameter is only used if cax is not set.

Defaults to the Axes that contains the mappable used to create the colorbar.

use_gridspecbool, optional

If cax is None, a new cax is created as an instance of Axes. If ax is positioned with a subplotspec and use_gridspec is True, then cax is also positioned with a subplotspec.

Returns:
colorbarColorbar
Other Parameters:
locationNone or {'left', 'right', 'top', 'bottom'}

The location, relative to the parent Axes, where the colorbar Axes is created. It also determines the orientation of the colorbar (colorbars on the left and right are vertical, colorbars at the top and bottom are horizontal). If None, the location will come from the orientation if it is set (vertical colorbars on the right, horizontal ones at the bottom), or default to 'right' if orientation is unset.

orientationNone or {'vertical', 'horizontal'}

The orientation of the colorbar. It is preferable to set the location of the colorbar, as that also determines the orientation; passing incompatible values for location and orientation raises an exception.

fractionfloat, default: 0.15

Fraction of original Axes to use for colorbar.

shrinkfloat, default: 1.0

Fraction by which to multiply the size of the colorbar.

aspectfloat, default: 20

Ratio of long to short dimensions.

padfloat, default: 0.05 if vertical, 0.15 if horizontal

Fraction of original Axes between colorbar and new image Axes.

anchor(float, float), optional

The anchor point of the colorbar Axes. Defaults to (0.0, 0.5) if vertical; (0.5, 1.0) if horizontal.

panchor(float, float), or False, optional

The anchor point of the colorbar parent Axes. If False, the parent axes' anchor will be unchanged. Defaults to (1.0, 0.5) if vertical; (0.5, 0.0) if horizontal.

extend{'neither', 'both', 'min', 'max'}

Make pointed end(s) for out-of-range values (unless 'neither'). 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 will 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.

extendrectbool

If False the minimum and maximum colorbar extensions will be triangular (the default). If True the extensions will be rectangular.

spacing{'uniform', 'proportional'}

For discrete colorbars (BoundaryNorm or contours), 'uniform' gives each color the same space; 'proportional' makes the space proportional to the data interval.

ticksNone or list of ticks or Locator

If None, ticks are determined automatically from the input.

formatNone or str or Formatter

If None, ScalarFormatter is used. Format strings, e.g., "%4.2e" or "{x:.2e}", are supported. An alternative Formatter may be given instead.

drawedgesbool

Whether to draw lines at color boundaries.

labelstr

The label on the colorbar's long axis.

boundaries, valuesNone or a sequence

If unset, the colormap will be displayed on a 0-1 scale. If sequences, values must have a length 1 less than boundaries. For each region delimited by adjacent entries in boundaries, the color mapped to the corresponding value in values will be used. Normally only useful for indexed colors (i.e. norm=NoNorm()) or other unusual circumstances.

Notes

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 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 viewers (svg and pdf) render 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, e.g. with semi-transparent images (alpha < 1) and colorbar extensions; therefore, this workaround is not used by default (see issue #1188).

contains(mouseevent)[source]#

Test whether the mouse event occurred on the figure.

Returns:
bool, {}
delaxes(ax)[source]#

Remove the Axes ax from the figure; update the current Axes.

draw(renderer)[source]#

Draw the Artist (and its children) using the given renderer.

This has no effect if the artist is not visible (Artist.get_visible returns False).

Parameters:
rendererRendererBase subclass.

Notes

This method is overridden in the Artist subclasses.

property frameon#

Return the figure's background patch visibility, i.e. whether the figure background will be drawn. Equivalent to Figure.patch.get_visible().

gca()[source]#

Get the current Axes.

If there is currently no Axes on this Figure, a new one is created using Figure.add_subplot. (To test whether there is currently an Axes on a Figure, check whether figure.axes is empty. To test whether there is currently a Figure on the pyplot figure stack, check whether pyplot.get_fignums() is empty.)

get_children()[source]#

Get a list of artists contained in the figure.

get_default_bbox_extra_artists()[source]#

Return a list of Artists typically used in Figure.get_tightbbox.

get_edgecolor()[source]#

Get the edge color of the Figure rectangle.

get_facecolor()[source]#

Get the face color of the Figure rectangle.

get_frameon()[source]#

Return the figure's background patch visibility, i.e. whether the figure background will be drawn. Equivalent to Figure.patch.get_visible().

get_linewidth()[source]#

Get the line width of the Figure rectangle.

get_suptitle()[source]#

Return the suptitle as string or an empty string if not set.

get_supxlabel()[source]#

Return the supxlabel as string or an empty string if not set.

get_supylabel()[source]#

Return the supylabel as string or an empty string if not set.

get_tightbbox(renderer=None, *, bbox_extra_artists=None)[source]#

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

Note that FigureBase differs from all other artists, which return their Bbox in pixels.

Artists that have artist.set_in_layout(False) are not included in the bbox.

Parameters:
rendererRendererBase subclass

Renderer that will be used to draw the figures (i.e. fig.canvas.get_renderer())

bbox_extra_artistslist of Artist or None

List of artists to include in the tight bounding box. If None (default), then all artist children of each Axes are included in the tight bounding box.

Returns:
BboxBase

containing the bounding box (in figure inches).

get_window_extent(renderer=None)[source]#

Get the artist's bounding box in display space.

The bounding box' width and height are nonnegative.

Subclasses should override for inclusion in the bounding box "tight" calculation. Default is to return an empty bounding box at 0, 0.

Be careful when using this function, the results will not update if the artist window extent of the artist changes. The extent can change due to any changes in the transform stack, such as changing the Axes limits, the figure size, or the canvas used (as is done when saving a figure). This can lead to unexpected behavior where interactive figures will look fine on the screen, but will save incorrectly.

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

Place a legend on the figure.

Call signatures:

legend()
legend(handles, labels)
legend(handles=handles)
legend(labels)

The call signatures correspond to the following different ways to use this method:

1. Automatic detection of elements to be shown in the legend

The elements to be added to the legend are automatically determined, when you do not pass in any extra arguments.

In this case, the labels are taken from the artist. You can specify them either at artist creation or by calling the set_label() method on the artist:

ax.plot([1, 2, 3], label='Inline label')
fig.legend()

or:

line, = ax.plot([1, 2, 3])
line.set_label('Label via method')
fig.legend()

Specific lines can be excluded from the automatic legend element selection by defining a label starting with an underscore. This is default for all artists, so calling Figure.legend without any arguments and without setting the labels manually will result in no legend being drawn.

2. Explicitly listing the artists and labels in the legend

For full control of which artists have a legend entry, it is possible to pass an iterable of legend artists followed by an iterable of legend labels respectively:

fig.legend([line1, line2, line3], ['label1', 'label2', 'label3'])

3. Explicitly listing the artists in the legend

This is similar to 2, but the labels are taken from the artists' label properties. Example:

line1, = ax1.plot([1, 2, 3], label='label1')
line2, = ax2.plot([1, 2, 3], label='label2')
fig.legend(handles=[line1, line2])

4. Labeling existing plot elements

Discouraged

This call signature is discouraged, because the relation between plot elements and labels is only implicit by their order and can easily be mixed up.

To make a legend for all artists on all Axes, call this function with an iterable of strings, one for each legend item. For example:

fig, (ax1, ax2) = plt.subplots(1, 2)
ax1.plot([1, 3, 5], color='blue')
ax2.plot([2, 4, 6], color='red')
fig.legend(['the blues', 'the reds'])
Parameters:
handleslist 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.

labelslist of str, 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:
Legend
Other Parameters:
locstr or pair of floats, default: 'upper right'

The location of the legend.

The strings 'upper left', 'upper right', 'lower left', 'lower right' place the legend at the corresponding corner of the figure.

The strings 'upper center', 'lower center', 'center left', 'center right' place the legend at the center of the corresponding edge of the figure.

The string 'center' places the legend at the center of the figure.

The location can also be a 2-tuple giving the coordinates of the lower-left corner of the legend in figure coordinates (in which case bbox_to_anchor will be ignored).

For back-compatibility, 'center right' (but no other location) can also be spelled 'right', and each "string" location can also be given as a numeric value:

Location String

Location Code

'best' (Axes only)

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

If a figure is using the constrained layout manager, the string codes of the loc keyword argument can get better layout behaviour using the prefix 'outside'. There is ambiguity at the corners, so 'outside upper right' will make space for the legend above the rest of the axes in the layout, and 'outside right upper' will make space on the right side of the layout. In addition to the values of loc listed above, we have 'outside right upper', 'outside right lower', 'outside left upper', and 'outside left lower'. See Legend guide for more details.

bbox_to_anchorBboxBase, 2-tuple, or 4-tuple of floats

Box that is used to position the legend in conjunction with loc. Defaults to axes.bbox (if called as a method to Axes.legend) or figure.bbox (if Figure.legend). This argument allows arbitrary placement of the legend.

Bbox coordinates are interpreted in the coordinate system given by bbox_transform, with the default transform Axes or Figure coordinates, depending on which legend is called.

If a 4-tuple or BboxBase is given, then it specifies the bbox (x, y, width, height) that the legend is placed in. To put the legend in the best location in the bottom right quadrant of the Axes (or figure):

loc='best', bbox_to_anchor=(0.5, 0., 0.5, 0.5)

A 2-tuple (x, y) places the corner of the legend specified by loc at x, y. For example, to put the legend's upper right-hand corner in the center of the Axes (or figure) the following keywords can be used:

loc='upper right', bbox_to_anchor=(0.5, 0.5)
ncolsint, default: 1

The number of columns that the legend has.

For backward compatibility, the spelling ncol is also supported but it is discouraged. If both are given, ncols takes precedence.

propNone or FontProperties or dict

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

fontsizeint or {'xx-small', 'x-small', 'small', 'medium', 'large', 'x-large', 'xx-large'}

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.

labelcolorstr or list, default: rcParams["legend.labelcolor"] (default: 'None')

The color of the text in the legend. Either a valid color string (for example, 'red'), or a list of color strings. The labelcolor can also be made to match the color of the line or marker using 'linecolor', 'markerfacecolor' (or 'mfc'), or 'markeredgecolor' (or 'mec').

Labelcolor can be set globally using rcParams["legend.labelcolor"] (default: 'None'). If None, use rcParams["text.color"] (default: 'black').

numpointsint, default: rcParams["legend.numpoints"] (default: 1)

The number of marker points in the legend when creating a legend entry for a Line2D (line).

scatterpointsint, default: rcParams["legend.scatterpoints"] (default: 1)

The number of marker points in the legend when creating a legend entry for a PathCollection (scatter plot).

scatteryoffsetsiterable of floats, default: [0.375, 0.5, 0.3125]

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].

markerscalefloat, default: rcParams["legend.markerscale"] (default: 1.0)

The relative size of legend markers compared to the originally drawn ones.

markerfirstbool, default: True

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.

reversebool, default: False

If True, the legend labels are displayed in reverse order from the input. If False, the legend labels are displayed in the same order as the input.

New in version 3.7.

frameonbool, default: rcParams["legend.frameon"] (default: True)

Whether the legend should be drawn on a patch (frame).

fancyboxbool, default: rcParams["legend.fancybox"] (default: True)

Whether round edges should be enabled around the FancyBboxPatch which makes up the legend's background.

shadowNone, bool or dict, default: rcParams["legend.shadow"] (default: False)

Whether to draw a shadow behind the legend. The shadow can be configured using Patch keywords. Customization via rcParams["legend.shadow"] (default: False) is currently not supported.

framealphafloat, default: rcParams["legend.framealpha"] (default: 0.8)

The alpha transparency of the legend's background. If shadow is activated and framealpha is None, the default value is ignored.

facecolor"inherit" or color, default: rcParams["legend.facecolor"] (default: 'inherit')

The legend's background color. If "inherit", use rcParams["axes.facecolor"] (default: 'white').

edgecolor"inherit" or color, default: rcParams["legend.edgecolor"] (default: '0.8')

The legend's background patch edge color. If "inherit", use rcParams["axes.edgecolor"] (default: 'black').

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_transformNone or Transform

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

titlestr or None

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

title_fontpropertiesNone or FontProperties or dict

The font properties of the legend's title. If None (default), the title_fontsize argument will be used if present; if title_fontsize is also None, the current rcParams["legend.title_fontsize"] (default: None) will be used.

title_fontsizeint or {'xx-small', 'x-small', 'small', 'medium', 'large', 'x-large', 'xx-large'}, default: rcParams["legend.title_fontsize"] (default: None)

The font size of the legend's title. Note: This cannot be combined with title_fontproperties. If you want to set the fontsize alongside other font properties, use the size parameter in title_fontproperties.

alignment{'center', 'left', 'right'}, default: 'center'

The alignment of the legend title and the box of entries. The entries are aligned as a single block, so that markers always lined up.

borderpadfloat, default: rcParams["legend.borderpad"] (default: 0.4)

The fractional whitespace inside the legend border, in font-size units.

labelspacingfloat, default: rcParams["legend.labelspacing"] (default: 0.5)

The vertical space between the legend entries, in font-size units.

handlelengthfloat, default: rcParams["legend.handlelength"] (default: 2.0)

The length of the legend handles, in font-size units.

handleheightfloat, default: rcParams["legend.handleheight"] (default: 0.7)

The height of the legend handles, in font-size units.

handletextpadfloat, default: rcParams["legend.handletextpad"] (default: 0.8)

The pad between the legend handle and text, in font-size units.

borderaxespadfloat, default: rcParams["legend.borderaxespad"] (default: 0.5)

The pad between the Axes and legend border, in font-size units.

columnspacingfloat, default: rcParams["legend.columnspacing"] (default: 2.0)

The spacing between columns, in font-size units.

handler_mapdict 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.

draggablebool, default: False

Whether the legend can be dragged with the mouse.

See also

Axes.legend

Notes

Some artists are not supported by this function. See Legend guide for details.

sca(a)[source]#

Set the current Axes to be a and return a.

set(*, agg_filter=<UNSET>, alpha=<UNSET>, animated=<UNSET>, clip_box=<UNSET>, clip_on=<UNSET>, clip_path=<UNSET>, edgecolor=<UNSET>, facecolor=<UNSET>, frameon=<UNSET>, gid=<UNSET>, in_layout=<UNSET>, label=<UNSET>, linewidth=<UNSET>, mouseover=<UNSET>, path_effects=<UNSET>, picker=<UNSET>, rasterized=<UNSET>, sketch_params=<UNSET>, snap=<UNSET>, transform=<UNSET>, url=<UNSET>, visible=<UNSET>, zorder=<UNSET>)[source]#

Set multiple properties at once.

Supported properties are

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 and two offsets from the bottom left corner of the image

alpha

scalar or None

animated

bool

clip_box

BboxBase or None

clip_on

bool

clip_path

Patch or (Path, Transform) or None

edgecolor

color

facecolor

color

figure

Figure

frameon

bool

gid

str

in_layout

bool

label

object

linewidth

number

mouseover

bool

path_effects

list of AbstractPathEffect

picker

None or bool or float or callable

rasterized

bool

sketch_params

(scale: float, length: float, randomness: float)

snap

bool or None

transform

Transform

url

str

visible

bool

zorder

float

set_edgecolor(color)[source]#

Set the edge color of the Figure rectangle.

Parameters:
colorcolor
set_facecolor(color)[source]#

Set the face color of the Figure rectangle.

Parameters:
colorcolor
set_frameon(b)[source]#

Set the figure's background patch visibility, i.e. whether the figure background will be drawn. Equivalent to Figure.patch.set_visible().

Parameters:
bbool
set_linewidth(linewidth)[source]#

Set the line width of the Figure rectangle.

Parameters:
linewidthnumber
subfigures(nrows=1, ncols=1, squeeze=True, wspace=None, hspace=None, width_ratios=None, height_ratios=None, **kwargs)[source]#

Add a set of subfigures to this figure or subfigure.

A subfigure has the same artist methods as a figure, and is logically the same as a figure, but cannot print itself. See Figure subfigures.

Note

The subfigure concept is new in v3.4, and the API is still provisional.

Parameters:
nrows, ncolsint, default: 1

Number of rows/columns of the subfigure grid.

squeezebool, default: True

If True, extra dimensions are squeezed out from the returned array of subfigures.

wspace, hspacefloat, default: None

The amount of width/height reserved for space between subfigures, expressed as a fraction of the average subfigure width/height. If not given, the values will be inferred from rcParams if using constrained layout (see ConstrainedLayoutEngine), or zero if not using a layout engine.

width_ratiosarray-like of length ncols, optional

Defines the relative widths of the columns. Each column gets a relative width of width_ratios[i] / sum(width_ratios). If not given, all columns will have the same width.

height_ratiosarray-like of length nrows, optional

Defines the relative heights of the rows. Each row gets a relative height of height_ratios[i] / sum(height_ratios). If not given, all rows will have the same height.

subplot_mosaic(mosaic, *, sharex=False, sharey=False, width_ratios=None, height_ratios=None, empty_sentinel='.', subplot_kw=None, per_subplot_kw=None, gridspec_kw=None)[source]#

Build a layout of Axes based on ASCII art or nested lists.

This is a helper function to build complex GridSpec layouts visually.

See Complex and semantic figure composition (subplot_mosaic) for an example and full API documentation

Parameters:
mosaiclist of list of {hashable or nested} or str

A visual layout of how you want your Axes to be arranged labeled as strings. For example

x = [['A panel', 'A panel', 'edge'],
     ['C panel', '.',       'edge']]

produces 4 Axes:

  • 'A panel' which is 1 row high and spans the first two columns

  • 'edge' which is 2 rows high and is on the right edge

  • 'C panel' which in 1 row and 1 column wide in the bottom left

  • a blank space 1 row and 1 column wide in the bottom center

Any of the entries in the layout can be a list of lists of the same form to create nested layouts.

If input is a str, then it can either be a multi-line string of the form

'''
AAE
C.E
'''

where each character is a column and each line is a row. Or it can be a single-line string where rows are separated by ;:

'AB;CC'

The string notation allows only single character Axes labels and does not support nesting but is very terse.

The Axes identifiers may be str or a non-iterable hashable object (e.g. tuple s may not be used).

sharex, shareybool, default: False

If True, the x-axis (sharex) or y-axis (sharey) will be shared among all subplots. In that case, tick label visibility and axis units behave as for subplots. If False, each subplot's x- or y-axis will be independent.

width_ratiosarray-like of length ncols, optional

Defines the relative widths of the columns. Each column gets a relative width of width_ratios[i] / sum(width_ratios). If not given, all columns will have the same width. Equivalent to gridspec_kw={'width_ratios': [...]}. In the case of nested layouts, this argument applies only to the outer layout.

height_ratiosarray-like of length nrows, optional

Defines the relative heights of the rows. Each row gets a relative height of height_ratios[i] / sum(height_ratios). If not given, all rows will have the same height. Equivalent to gridspec_kw={'height_ratios': [...]}. In the case of nested layouts, this argument applies only to the outer layout.

subplot_kwdict, optional

Dictionary with keywords passed to the Figure.add_subplot call used to create each subplot. These values may be overridden by values in per_subplot_kw.

per_subplot_kwdict, optional

A dictionary mapping the Axes identifiers or tuples of identifiers to a dictionary of keyword arguments to be passed to the Figure.add_subplot call used to create each subplot. The values in these dictionaries have precedence over the values in subplot_kw.

If mosaic is a string, and thus all keys are single characters, it is possible to use a single string instead of a tuple as keys; i.e. "AB" is equivalent to ("A", "B").

New in version 3.7.

gridspec_kwdict, optional

Dictionary with keywords passed to the GridSpec constructor used to create the grid the subplots are placed on. In the case of nested layouts, this argument applies only to the outer layout. For more complex layouts, users should use Figure.subfigures to create the nesting.

empty_sentinelobject, optional

Entry in the layout to mean "leave this space empty". Defaults to '.'. Note, if layout is a string, it is processed via inspect.cleandoc to remove leading white space, which may interfere with using white-space as the empty sentinel.

Returns:
dict[label, Axes]

A dictionary mapping the labels to the Axes objects. The order of the Axes is left-to-right and top-to-bottom of their position in the total layout.

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

Add a set of subplots to this figure.

This utility wrapper makes it convenient to create common layouts of subplots in a single call.

Parameters:
nrows, ncolsint, default: 1

Number of rows/columns of the subplot grid.

sharex, shareybool or {'none', 'all', 'row', 'col'}, default: False

Controls sharing of x-axis (sharex) or y-axis (sharey):

  • 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 created. Similarly, when subplots have a shared y-axis along a row, only the y tick labels of the first column subplot are created. To later turn other subplots' ticklabels on, use tick_params.

When subplots have a shared axis that has units, calling Axis.set_units will update each axis with the new units.

squeezebool, default: True
  • If True, extra dimensions are squeezed out from the returned array of Axes:

    • if only one subplot is constructed (nrows=ncols=1), the resulting single Axes object is returned as a scalar.

    • for Nx1 or 1xM subplots, the returned object is a 1D numpy object array of Axes objects.

    • for NxM, subplots with N>1 and M>1 are returned as a 2D array.

  • 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.

width_ratiosarray-like of length ncols, optional

Defines the relative widths of the columns. Each column gets a relative width of width_ratios[i] / sum(width_ratios). If not given, all columns will have the same width. Equivalent to gridspec_kw={'width_ratios': [...]}.

height_ratiosarray-like of length nrows, optional

Defines the relative heights of the rows. Each row gets a relative height of height_ratios[i] / sum(height_ratios). If not given, all rows will have the same height. Equivalent to gridspec_kw={'height_ratios': [...]}.

subplot_kwdict, optional

Dict with keywords passed to the Figure.add_subplot call used to create each subplot.

gridspec_kwdict, optional

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

Returns:
Axes or array of Axes

Either a single Axes object or an array of Axes objects if more than one subplot was created. The dimensions of the resulting array can be controlled with the squeeze keyword, see above.

Examples

# First create some toy data:
x = np.linspace(0, 2*np.pi, 400)
y = np.sin(x**2)

# Create a figure
fig = plt.figure()

# Create a subplot
ax = fig.subplots()
ax.plot(x, y)
ax.set_title('Simple plot')

# Create two subplots and unpack the output array immediately
ax1, ax2 = fig.subplots(1, 2, sharey=True)
ax1.plot(x, y)
ax1.set_title('Sharing Y axis')
ax2.scatter(x, y)

# Create four polar Axes and access them through the returned array
axes = fig.subplots(2, 2, subplot_kw=dict(projection='polar'))
axes[0, 0].plot(x, y)
axes[1, 1].scatter(x, y)

# Share an X-axis with each column of subplots
fig.subplots(2, 2, sharex='col')

# Share a Y-axis with each row of subplots
fig.subplots(2, 2, sharey='row')

# Share both X- and Y-axes with all subplots
fig.subplots(2, 2, sharex='all', sharey='all')

# Note that this is the same as
fig.subplots(2, 2, sharex=True, sharey=True)
subplots_adjust(left=None, bottom=None, right=None, top=None, wspace=None, hspace=None)[source]#

Adjust the subplot layout parameters.

Unset parameters are left unmodified; initial values are given by rcParams["figure.subplot.[name]"].

Parameters:
leftfloat, optional

The position of the left edge of the subplots, as a fraction of the figure width.

rightfloat, optional

The position of the right edge of the subplots, as a fraction of the figure width.

bottomfloat, optional

The position of the bottom edge of the subplots, as a fraction of the figure height.

topfloat, optional

The position of the top edge of the subplots, as a fraction of the figure height.

wspacefloat, optional

The width of the padding between subplots, as a fraction of the average Axes width.

hspacefloat, optional

The height of the padding between subplots, as a fraction of the average Axes height.

suptitle(t, **kwargs)[source]#

Add a centered suptitle to the figure.

Parameters:
tstr

The suptitle text.

xfloat, default: 0.5

The x location of the text in figure coordinates.

yfloat, default: 0.98

The y location of the text in figure coordinates.

horizontalalignment, ha{'center', 'left', 'right'}, default: center

The horizontal alignment of the text relative to (x, y).

verticalalignment, va{'top', 'center', 'bottom', 'baseline'}, default: top

The vertical alignment of the text relative to (x, y).

fontsize, sizedefault: rcParams["figure.titlesize"] (default: 'large')

The font size of the text. See Text.set_size for possible values.

fontweight, weightdefault: rcParams["figure.titleweight"] (default: 'normal')

The font weight of the text. See Text.set_weight for possible values.

Returns:
text

The Text instance of the suptitle.

Other Parameters:
fontpropertiesNone or dict, optional

A dict of font properties. If fontproperties is given the default values for font size and weight are taken from the FontProperties defaults. rcParams["figure.titlesize"] (default: 'large') and rcParams["figure.titleweight"] (default: 'normal') are ignored in this case.

**kwargs

Additional kwargs are matplotlib.text.Text properties.

supxlabel(t, **kwargs)[source]#

Add a centered supxlabel to the figure.

Parameters:
tstr

The supxlabel text.

xfloat, default: 0.5

The x location of the text in figure coordinates.

yfloat, default: 0.01

The y location of the text in figure coordinates.

horizontalalignment, ha{'center', 'left', 'right'}, default: center

The horizontal alignment of the text relative to (x, y).

verticalalignment, va{'top', 'center', 'bottom', 'baseline'}, default: bottom

The vertical alignment of the text relative to (x, y).

fontsize, sizedefault: rcParams["figure.labelsize"] (default: 'large')

The font size of the text. See Text.set_size for possible values.

fontweight, weightdefault: rcParams["figure.labelweight"] (default: 'normal')

The font weight of the text. See Text.set_weight for possible values.

Returns:
text

The Text instance of the supxlabel.

Other Parameters:
fontpropertiesNone or dict, optional

A dict of font properties. If fontproperties is given the default values for font size and weight are taken from the FontProperties defaults. rcParams["figure.labelsize"] (default: 'large') and rcParams["figure.labelweight"] (default: 'normal') are ignored in this case.

**kwargs

Additional kwargs are matplotlib.text.Text properties.

supylabel(t, **kwargs)[source]#

Add a centered supylabel to the figure.

Parameters:
tstr

The supylabel text.

xfloat, default: 0.02

The x location of the text in figure coordinates.

yfloat, default: 0.5

The y location of the text in figure coordinates.

horizontalalignment, ha{'center', 'left', 'right'}, default: left

The horizontal alignment of the text relative to (x, y).

verticalalignment, va{'top', 'center', 'bottom', 'baseline'}, default: center

The vertical alignment of the text relative to (x, y).

fontsize, sizedefault: rcParams["figure.labelsize"] (default: 'large')

The font size of the text. See Text.set_size for possible values.

fontweight, weightdefault: rcParams["figure.labelweight"] (default: 'normal')

The font weight of the text. See Text.set_weight for possible values.

Returns:
text

The Text instance of the supylabel.

Other Parameters:
fontpropertiesNone or dict, optional

A dict of font properties. If fontproperties is given the default values for font size and weight are taken from the FontProperties defaults. rcParams["figure.labelsize"] (default: 'large') and rcParams["figure.labelweight"] (default: 'normal') are ignored in this case.

**kwargs

Additional kwargs are matplotlib.text.Text properties.

text(x, y, s, fontdict=None, **kwargs)[source]#

Add text to figure.

Parameters:
x, yfloat

The position to place the text. By default, this is in figure coordinates, floats in [0, 1]. The coordinate system can be changed using the transform keyword.

sstr

The text string.

fontdictdict, optional

A dictionary to override the default text properties. If not given, the defaults are determined by rcParams["font.*"]. Properties passed as kwargs override the corresponding ones given in fontdict.

Returns:
Text
Other Parameters:
**kwargsText properties

Other miscellaneous text parameters.

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 and two offsets from the bottom left corner of the image

alpha

scalar or None

animated

bool

antialiased

bool

backgroundcolor

color

bbox

dict with properties for patches.FancyBboxPatch

clip_box

unknown

clip_on

unknown

clip_path

unknown

color or c

color

figure

Figure

fontfamily or family or fontname

{FONTNAME, 'serif', 'sans-serif', 'cursive', 'fantasy', 'monospace'}

fontproperties or font or font_properties

font_manager.FontProperties or str or pathlib.Path

fontsize or size

float or {'xx-small', 'x-small', 'small', 'medium', 'large', 'x-large', 'xx-large'}

fontstretch or stretch

{a numeric value in range 0-1000, 'ultra-condensed', 'extra-condensed', 'condensed', 'semi-condensed', 'normal', 'semi-expanded', 'expanded', 'extra-expanded', 'ultra-expanded'}

fontstyle or style

{'normal', 'italic', 'oblique'}

fontvariant or variant

{'normal', 'small-caps'}

fontweight or weight

{a numeric value in range 0-1000, 'ultralight', 'light', 'normal', 'regular', 'book', 'medium', 'roman', 'semibold', 'demibold', 'demi', 'bold', 'heavy', 'extra bold', 'black'}

gid

str

horizontalalignment or ha

{'left', 'center', 'right'}

in_layout

bool

label

object

linespacing

float (multiple of font size)

math_fontfamily

str

mouseover

bool

multialignment or ma

{'left', 'right', 'center'}

parse_math

bool

path_effects

list of AbstractPathEffect

picker

None or bool or float or callable

position

(float, float)

rasterized

bool

rotation

float or {'vertical', 'horizontal'}

rotation_mode

{None, 'default', 'anchor'}

sketch_params

(scale: float, length: float, randomness: float)

snap

bool or None

text

object

transform

Transform

transform_rotates_text

bool

url

str

usetex

bool, default: rcParams["text.usetex"] (default: False)

verticalalignment or va

{'baseline', 'bottom', 'center', 'center_baseline', 'top'}

visible

bool

wrap

bool

x

float

y

float

zorder

float

Helper functions#

matplotlib.figure.figaspect(arg)[source]#

Calculate the width and height for a figure with a specified aspect ratio.

While the height is taken from rcParams["figure.figsize"] (default: [6.4, 4.8]), the width is adjusted to match the desired aspect ratio. Additionally, it is ensured that the width is in the range [4., 16.] and the height is in the range [2., 16.]. If necessary, the default height is adjusted to ensure this.

Parameters:
argfloat or 2D array

If a float, this defines the aspect ratio (i.e. the ratio height / width). In case of an array the aspect ratio is number of rows / number of columns, so that the array could be fitted in the figure undistorted.

Returns:
width, heightfloat

The figure size in inches.

Notes

If you want to create an Axes within the figure, that still preserves the aspect ratio, be sure to create it with equal width and height. See examples below.

Thanks to Fernando Perez for this function.

Examples

Make a figure twice as tall as it is wide:

w, h = figaspect(2.)
fig = Figure(figsize=(w, h))
ax = fig.add_axes([0.1, 0.1, 0.8, 0.8])
ax.imshow(A, **kwargs)

Make a figure with the proper aspect for an array:

A = rand(5, 3)
w, h = figaspect(A)
fig = Figure(figsize=(w, h))
ax = fig.add_axes([0.1, 0.1, 0.8, 0.8])
ax.imshow(A, **kwargs)