Develop Reference

How to change the scale of an image to overlay with points in Matplotlib? [duplicate]

I want to create a figure that shows a background image with overlaid scatter and line plots:
As you can see, the axes ticks show image coordinates. The scatter and line plot are given in image coordinates, too - which is not desired. The scatter and line plots should still be able to work (and be meaningful) without the background image. The extent is not known because this figure is used to determine the extent (interactively) in the first place.
Instead, I'd like to specify the scatter and line plots in the coordinate system shown in the background image (units m³/h and m): the transformation from image coordinates to "axis on top" coordinates would be roughly (110,475) -> (0,10) and (530,190) -> (8,40).
In principle I can see two ways of doing it:
specify image extent after it has been added. However, I don't see this documented anywhere; This example shows how it's done when the extent is known at the call to imshow(): Plot over an image background in python
add an axes on top of the image axes with twinx and twin y, where both x,x and y,y pairs are tightly coupled. I have only seen features that allow me to specify a shared x or a shared y axis, not both.

The restriction here seems to be that "The scatter and line plots should still be able to work (and be meaningful) without the background image.". This however would not imply that you cannot use the extent keyword argument.
At the time you add the image, you'd specify the extent.
plt.scatter(...)
plt.plot(...)
plt.imshow(..., extent = [...])
You can also set the extent later, if that is desired for some reason not explained in the question, i.e.
plt.scatter(...)
plt.plot(...)
im = plt.imshow(...)
im.set_extent([...])
Finally you may also decide to remove the image, and plot it again; this time with the desired extent,
plt.scatter(...)
plt.plot(...)
im = plt.imshow(...)
im.remove()
im = plt.imshow(..., extent=[...])

how can you set the geographical projection with datashader?

I plotted a geographic map with datashader. Everything works fine, however the geographic projection seems to be incorrect. The lengths and aspect ratios do not match, probably because no geographical projection is set?
My Code looks like this:
agg = ds.Canvas().points(df, 'lon',"lat")
karte=ds.tf.set_background(ds.tf.shade(agg, cmap=cc.fire,how="log"), "black")
utils.export_image(img=karte,filename='output', fmt=".png", background=None)

That's a nice-looking amoeba! :-)
Datashader is a general-purpose tool, not tied to geographical data in any way. In particular, if you want the data to be projected into some other coordinate system, you need to project it before calling Datashader; all Datashader does is render what it is given.
Datashader does include one utility function for the special case of projecting lon/lat data into Web Mercator (datashader.utils.lnglat_to_meters), for convenience with plotting libraries that use Web Mercator mapping tiles, but if you are visualizing the data on its own (not overlaid on a map) you shouldn't even need that utility; bare lon/lat values should be ok.
If you want some specific aspect ratio, you can determine it with parameters to the Canvas constructor. Specifically, set set the plot_height and plot_width to whatever image size you want, then set x_range and y_range to the ranges of data space you want in that image size (e.g. longitude and latitude ranges like xrange=(270, 290), yrange=(30,40)).
Or you can use the high-level interfaces at hvplot.holoviz.org or holoviews.org to overlay onto a map, which will force a geographic aspect ratio.

Saving images in Python at a very high quality

How can I save Python plots at very high quality?
That is, when I keep zooming in on the object saved in a PDF file, why isn't there any blurring?
Also, what would be the best mode to save it in?
png, eps? Or some other? I can't do pdf, because there is a hidden number that happens that mess with Latexmk compilation.

If you are using Matplotlib and are trying to get good figures in a LaTeX document, save as an EPS. Specifically, try something like this after running the commands to plot the image:
plt.savefig('destination_path.eps', format='eps')
I have found that EPS files work best and the dpi parameter is what really makes them look good in a document.
To specify the orientation of the figure before saving, simply call the following before the plt.savefig call, but after creating the plot (assuming you have plotted using an axes with the name ax):
ax.view_init(elev=elevation_angle, azim=azimuthal_angle)
Where elevation_angle is a number (in degrees) specifying the polar angle (down from vertical z axis) and the azimuthal_angle specifies the azimuthal angle (around the z axis).
I find that it is easiest to determine these values by first plotting the image and then rotating it and watching the current values of the angles appear towards the bottom of the window just below the actual plot. Keep in mind that the x, y, z, positions appear by default, but they are replaced with the two angles when you start to click+drag+rotate the image.

Just to add my results, also using Matplotlib.
.eps made all my text bold and removed transparency. .svg gave me high-resolution pictures that actually looked like my graph.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
# Do the plot code
fig.savefig('myimage.svg', format='svg', dpi=1200)
I used 1200 dpi because a lot of scientific journals require images in 1200 / 600 / 300 dpi, depending on what the image is of. Convert to desired dpi and format in GIMP or Inkscape.
Obviously the dpi doesn't matter since .svg are vector graphics and have "infinite resolution".

You can save to a figure that is 1920x1080 (or 1080p) using:
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(19.20,10.80))
You can also go much higher or lower. The above solutions work well for printing, but these days you want the created image to go into a PNG/JPG or appear in a wide screen format.

Okay, I found spencerlyon2's answer working. However, in case anybody would find himself/herself not knowing what to do with that one line, I had to do it this way:
beingsaved = plt.figure()
# Some scatter plots
plt.scatter(X_1_x, X_1_y)
plt.scatter(X_2_x, X_2_y)
beingsaved.savefig('destination_path.eps', format='eps', dpi=1000)

In case you are working with seaborn plots, instead of Matplotlib, you can save a .png image like this:
Let's suppose you have a matrix object (either Pandas or NumPy), and you want to take a heatmap:
import seaborn as sb
image = sb.heatmap(matrix) # This gets you the heatmap
image.figure.savefig("C:/Your/Path/ ... /your_image.png") # This saves it
This code is compatible with the latest version of Seaborn. Other code around Stack Overflow worked only for previous versions.
Another way I like is this. I set the size of the next image as follows:
plt.subplots(figsize=(15,15))
And then later I plot the output in the console, from which I can copy-paste it where I want. (Since Seaborn is built on top of Matplotlib, there will not be any problem.)

How to place country boarders as background for a plot with matplotlib?

I have some data made of coordinates and the count of each coordinate which I plot in a heatmap like this:
pyplot.subplot(211)
pyplot.scatter(longitudes, latitudes, c=counts)
pyplot.colorbar()
which is inspired by this great answer here in SO.
If you look closely you can see, that the dots shape the worldmap somehow. To underline this effect I'd like to put the real country boarders (simply drawn would be enough) as background to my plot. Is this possible with matplotlib? Maybe there is some (hidden) builtin in matplotlib?

You can likely achieve this if you have some image of the world map that you want as a background. You can read this into a numpy array and plot the image. Then you should be able to add your scatter plot overtop of the image. This matplotlib cookbook example shows how to insert images and such. There is also the matplotlib image tutorial that may be of use.
I've not used it, but you may also be interested in the basemap toolkit for matplotlib. In particular, the section on drawing a map background mentions specifically a drawcountries() method.

How do I convert (or scale) axis values and redefine the tick frequency in matplotlib?

I am displaying a jpg image (I rotate this by 90 degrees, if this is relevant) and of course
the axes display the pixel coordinates. I would like to convert the axis so that instead of displaying the pixel number, it will display my unit of choice - be it radians, degrees, or in my case an astronomical coordinate. I know the conversion from pixel to (eg) degree. Here is a snippet of what my code looks like currently:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import Image
import matplotlib
thumb = Image.open(self.image)
thumb = thumb.rotate(90)
dpi = plt.rcParams['figure.dpi']
figsize = thumb.size[0]/dpi, thumb.size[1]/dpi
fig = plt.figure(figsize=figsize)
plt.imshow(thumb, origin='lower',aspect='equal')
plt.show()
...so following on from this, can I take each value that matplotlib would print on the axis, and change/replace it with a string to output instead? I would want to do this for a specific coordinate format - eg, rather than an angle of 10.44 (degrees), I would like it to read 10 26' 24'' (ie, degrees, arcmins, arcsecs)
Finally on this theme, I'd want control over the tick frequency, on the plot. Matplotlib might print the axis value every 50 pixels, but I'd really want it every (for example) degree.
It sounds like I would like to define some kind of array with the pixel values and their converted values (degrees etc) that I want to be displayed, having control over the sampling frequency over the range xmin/xmax range.
Are there any matplotlib experts on Stack Overflow? If so, thanks very much in advance for your help! To make this a more learning experience, I'd really appreciate being prodded in the direction of tutorials etc on this kind of matplotlib problem. I've found myself getting very confused with axes, axis, figures, artists etc!
Cheers,
Dave

It looks like you're dealing with the matplotlib.pyplot interface, which means that you'll be able to bypass most of the dealing with artists, axes, and the like. You can control the values and labels of the tick marks by using the matplotlib.pyplot.xticks command, as follows:
tick_locs = [list of locations where you want your tick marks placed]
tick_lbls = [list of corresponding labels for each of the tick marks]
plt.xticks(tick_locs, tick_lbls)
For your particular example, you'll have to compute what the tick marks are relative to the units (i.e. pixels) of your original plot (since you're using imshow) - you said you know how to do this, though.
I haven't dealt with images much, but you may be able to use a different plotting method (e.g. pcolor) that allows you to supply x and y information. That may give you a few more options for specifying the units of your image.
For tutorials, you would do well to look through the matplotlib gallery - find something you like, and read the code that produced it. One of the guys in our office recently bought a book on Python visualization - that may be worthwhile looking at.
The way that I generally think of all the various pieces is as follows:
A Figure is a container for all the Axes
An Axes is the space where what you draw (i.e. your plot) actually shows up
An Axis is the actual x and y axes
Artists? That's too deep in the interface for me: I've never had to worry about those yet, even though I rarely use the pyplot module in production plots.