Matplotlib Subplot Generation Tutorial

Introduction

In this tutorial, you will learn how to use the subplot2grid function in Python's Matplotlib library to generate subplots.

VM Tips

After the VM startup is done, click the top left corner to switch to the Notebook tab to access Jupyter Notebook for practice.

Sometimes, you may need to wait a few seconds for Jupyter Notebook to finish loading. The validation of operations cannot be automated because of limitations in Jupyter Notebook.

If you face issues during learning, feel free to ask Labby. Provide feedback after the session, and we will promptly resolve the problem for you.

Skills Graph

Import Required Libraries

Before we start, we need to import the Matplotlib library using the following code:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

Create a Figure Object

To create a figure object, use the following code:

fig = plt.figure()

Define Subplots Using subplot2grid

To define subplots using subplot2grid, we first need to specify the size of the grid using a tuple with the desired number of rows and columns. We also need to specify the location of the subplot within the grid using another tuple.

For example, to create a 3x3 grid with a subplot that spans the entire first row and all three columns, we use the following code:

ax1 = plt.subplot2grid((3, 3), (0, 0), colspan=3)

To create a subplot that spans the second row and first two columns, we use:

ax2 = plt.subplot2grid((3, 3), (1, 0), colspan=2)

To create a subplot that spans the last two rows and the last column, we use:

ax3 = plt.subplot2grid((3, 3), (1, 2), rowspan=2)

To create a subplot in the last row and first column, we use:

ax4 = plt.subplot2grid((3, 3), (2, 0))

To create a subplot in the last row and second column, we use:

ax5 = plt.subplot2grid((3, 3), (2, 1))

Annotate Axes

To annotate the axes, we can loop through the figure axes and add text using the text function and the tick_params function to remove the tick labels.

def annotate_axes(fig):
    for i, ax in enumerate(fig.axes):
        ax.text(0.5, 0.5, "ax%d" % (i+1), va="center", ha="center")
        ax.tick_params(labelbottom=False, labelleft=False)

Display the Plot

To display the plot, use the following code:

plt.show()

Summary

In this tutorial, you learned how to use the subplot2grid function in Matplotlib to generate subplots. You also learned how to create a figure object, define subplots within a grid, annotate axes, and display the plot.