Share scaling of differntly sized subplots' axes (not sharing axes) - python

With matplotlib, I want to plot two graphs with the same x-axis scale, but I want to show different sized sections. How can I accomplish that?
So far I can plot differently sized subplots with GridSpec or same sized ones who share the x-axis. When I try both at once, the smaller subplot has the same axis but smaller scaled, while I want the same scaling and a different axis, so sharing the axis might be a wrong idea.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.gridspec import GridSpec
x=np.linspace(0,10,100)
y=np.sin(x)
x2=np.linspace(0,5,60)
y2=np.cos(x2)
fig=plt.figure()
gs=GridSpec(2,3)
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(gs[0, :])
ax1.plot(x,y)
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(gs[1,:-1])
#using sharex=ax1 here decreases the scaling of ax2 too much
ax2.plot(x2,y2)
plt.show()
I want the x.axes to have the same scaling, i.e. the same x values are always exactly on top of each other, this should give you an idea. The smaller plot's frame could be expanded or fit the plot, that doesn't matter. As it is now, the scales don't match.
Thanks in advance.


This is still a bit rough. I'm sure there's a slightly more elegant way to do this, but you can create a custom transformation (see Transformations Tutorial) between the Axes coordinates of ax2 and the data coordinates of ax1. In other word, your calculating what is the data-value (according to ax1) at the position corresponding to the left and right edges of ax2, and then adjust the xlim of ax2 accordingly.
Here is a demonstration showing that it works even if the second subplot is not aligned in any particular way with the first.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.gridspec import GridSpec
x=np.linspace(0,25,100)
y=np.sin(x)
x2=np.linspace(10,30,60)
y2=np.cos(x2)
fig=plt.figure()
gs=GridSpec(2,6)
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(gs[0, :])
ax1.plot(x,y)
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(gs[1,3:-1])
ax2.plot(x2,y2)
# here is where the magic happens
trans = ax2.transAxes + ax1.transData.inverted()
((xmin,_),(xmax,_)) = trans.transform([[0,1],[1,1]])
ax2.set_xlim(xmin,xmax)
# for demonstration, show that the vertical lines end up aligned
for ax in [ax1,ax2]:
for pos in [15,20]:
ax.axvline(pos)
plt.show()
EDIT: One possible refinement would be to do the transform in the xlim_changed event callback. That way, the axes stay in sync even when zooming/panning in the first axes.
There is also a slight issue with tight_layout() as you noted, but that is easily fixed by calling the callback function directly.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.gridspec import GridSpec
def on_xlim_changed(event):
# here is where the magic happens
trans = ax2.transAxes + ax1.transData.inverted()
((xmin, _), (xmax, _)) = trans.transform([[0, 1], [1, 1]])
ax2.set_xlim(xmin, xmax)
x = np.linspace(0, 25, 100)
y = np.sin(x)
x2 = np.linspace(10, 30, 60)
y2 = np.cos(x2)
fig = plt.figure()
gs = GridSpec(2, 6)
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(gs[0, :])
ax1.plot(x, y)
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(gs[1, 3:-1])
ax2.plot(x2, y2)
# for demonstration, show that the vertical lines end up aligned
for ax in [ax1, ax2]:
for pos in [15, 20]:
ax.axvline(pos)
# tight_layout() messes up the axes xlim
# but can be fixed by calling on_xlim_changed()
fig.tight_layout()
on_xlim_changed(None)
ax1.callbacks.connect('xlim_changed', on_xlim_changed)
plt.show()


I suggest setting limits of the second axis based on the limits of ax1.
Try this!
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(gs[1,:-1])
ax2.plot(x2,y2)
lb, ub = ax1.get_xlim()
# Default margin is 0.05, which would be used for auto-scaling, hence reduce that here
# Set lower bound and upper bound based on the grid size, which you choose for second plot
ax2.set_xlim(lb, ub *(2/3) -0.5)
plt.show()

Related

Stacking Subplots in Matplotlib

i would like to stack 2 subplots so that one of them is in front of the other one. In addition to that i would like to set the size of the subplot in the back a little bit bigger than the subplot in the front in order to see the edges. Here is an example how it should look.
For both subplots i need to use ax = Subplot(fig,111) and fig.add_subplot(ax) cause i want to implement a gridhelper in the subplots.
Is it possible to change the size of ax2 without changing ax1 so that ax2 in the background is slightly bigger than ax1 ?

This might get you on the right track, although I am not sure how it influences your grid helper requirement:
import numpy as np
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
x, y = np.linspace(-5, 5, 1024), np.linspace(-5, 5, 1024)
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_axes((0,0,1,1)) # lower_x, lower_y, width, height
ax.plot(x,y)
ax = fig.add_axes((0.2,0.2,.6,.6))
ax.plot(x,y)
source: here

Why has subplot of matplotlib not the same size? [duplicate]

I've spent entirely too long researching how to get two subplots to share the same y-axis with a single colorbar shared between the two in Matplotlib.
What was happening was that when I called the colorbar() function in either subplot1 or subplot2, it would autoscale the plot such that the colorbar plus the plot would fit inside the 'subplot' bounding box, causing the two side-by-side plots to be two very different sizes.
To get around this, I tried to create a third subplot which I then hacked to render no plot with just a colorbar present.
The only problem is, now the heights and widths of the two plots are uneven, and I can't figure out how to make it look okay.
Here is my code:
from __future__ import division
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from matplotlib import patches
from matplotlib.ticker import NullFormatter
# SIS Functions
TE = 1 # Einstein radius
g1 = lambda x,y: (TE/2) * (y**2-x**2)/((x**2+y**2)**(3/2))
g2 = lambda x,y: -1*TE*x*y / ((x**2+y**2)**(3/2))
kappa = lambda x,y: TE / (2*np.sqrt(x**2+y**2))
coords = np.linspace(-2,2,400)
X,Y = np.meshgrid(coords,coords)
g1out = g1(X,Y)
g2out = g2(X,Y)
kappaout = kappa(X,Y)
for i in range(len(coords)):
for j in range(len(coords)):
if np.sqrt(coords[i]**2+coords[j]**2) <= TE:
g1out[i][j]=0
g2out[i][j]=0
fig = plt.figure()
fig.subplots_adjust(wspace=0,hspace=0)
# subplot number 1
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(1,2,1,aspect='equal',xlim=[-2,2],ylim=[-2,2])
plt.title(r"$\gamma_{1}$",fontsize="18")
plt.xlabel(r"x ($\theta_{E}$)",fontsize="15")
plt.ylabel(r"y ($\theta_{E}$)",rotation='horizontal',fontsize="15")
plt.xticks([-2.0,-1.5,-1.0,-0.5,0,0.5,1.0,1.5])
plt.xticks([-2.0,-1.5,-1.0,-0.5,0,0.5,1.0,1.5])
plt.imshow(g1out,extent=(-2,2,-2,2))
plt.axhline(y=0,linewidth=2,color='k',linestyle="--")
plt.axvline(x=0,linewidth=2,color='k',linestyle="--")
e1 = patches.Ellipse((0,0),2,2,color='white')
ax1.add_patch(e1)
# subplot number 2
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(1,2,2,sharey=ax1,xlim=[-2,2],ylim=[-2,2])
plt.title(r"$\gamma_{2}$",fontsize="18")
plt.xlabel(r"x ($\theta_{E}$)",fontsize="15")
ax2.yaxis.set_major_formatter( NullFormatter() )
plt.axhline(y=0,linewidth=2,color='k',linestyle="--")
plt.axvline(x=0,linewidth=2,color='k',linestyle="--")
plt.imshow(g2out,extent=(-2,2,-2,2))
e2 = patches.Ellipse((0,0),2,2,color='white')
ax2.add_patch(e2)
# subplot for colorbar
ax3 = fig.add_subplot(1,1,1)
ax3.axis('off')
cbar = plt.colorbar(ax=ax2)
plt.show()

Just place the colorbar in its own axis and use subplots_adjust to make room for it.
As a quick example:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2)
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.subplots_adjust(right=0.8)
cbar_ax = fig.add_axes([0.85, 0.15, 0.05, 0.7])
fig.colorbar(im, cax=cbar_ax)
plt.show()
Note that the color range will be set by the last image plotted (that gave rise to im) even if the range of values is set by vmin and vmax. If another plot has, for example, a higher max value, points with higher values than the max of im will show in uniform color.

You can simplify Joe Kington's code using the axparameter of figure.colorbar() with a list of axes.
From the documentation:
ax
None | parent axes object(s) 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.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2)
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.ravel().tolist())
plt.show()

This solution does not require manual tweaking of axes locations or colorbar size, works with multi-row and single-row layouts, and works with tight_layout(). It is adapted from a gallery example, using ImageGrid from matplotlib's AxesGrid Toolbox.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits.axes_grid1 import ImageGrid
# Set up figure and image grid
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(9.75, 3))
grid = ImageGrid(fig, 111, # as in plt.subplot(111)
nrows_ncols=(1,3),
axes_pad=0.15,
share_all=True,
cbar_location="right",
cbar_mode="single",
cbar_size="7%",
cbar_pad=0.15,
)
# Add data to image grid
for ax in grid:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
# Colorbar
ax.cax.colorbar(im)
ax.cax.toggle_label(True)
#plt.tight_layout() # Works, but may still require rect paramater to keep colorbar labels visible
plt.show()

Using make_axes is even easier and gives a better result. It also provides possibilities to customise the positioning of the colorbar.
Also note the option of subplots to share x and y axes.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib as mpl
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2, sharex=True, sharey=True)
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
cax,kw = mpl.colorbar.make_axes([ax for ax in axes.flat])
plt.colorbar(im, cax=cax, **kw)
plt.show()

As a beginner who stumbled across this thread, I'd like to add a python-for-dummies adaptation of abevieiramota's very neat answer (because I'm at the level that I had to look up 'ravel' to work out what their code was doing):
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ((ax1,ax2,ax3),(ax4,ax5,ax6)) = plt.subplots(2,3)
axlist = [ax1,ax2,ax3,ax4,ax5,ax6]
first = ax1.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
third = ax3.imshow(np.random.random((12,12)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.colorbar(first, ax=axlist)
plt.show()
Much less pythonic, much easier for noobs like me to see what's actually happening here.

Shared colormap and colorbar
This is for the more complex case where the values are not just between 0 and 1; the cmap needs to be shared instead of just using the last one.
import numpy as np
from matplotlib.colors import Normalize
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.cm as cm
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2)
cmap=cm.get_cmap('viridis')
normalizer=Normalize(0,4)
im=cm.ScalarMappable(norm=normalizer)
for i,ax in enumerate(axes.flat):
ax.imshow(i+np.random.random((10,10)),cmap=cmap,norm=normalizer)
ax.set_title(str(i))
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.ravel().tolist())
plt.show()

As pointed out in other answers, the idea is usually to define an axes for the colorbar to reside in. There are various ways of doing so; one that hasn't been mentionned yet would be to directly specify the colorbar axes at subplot creation with plt.subplots(). The advantage is that the axes position does not need to be manually set and in all cases with automatic aspect the colorbar will be exactly the same height as the subplots. Even in many cases where images are used the result will be satisfying as shown below.
When using plt.subplots(), the use of gridspec_kw argument allows to make the colorbar axes much smaller than the other axes.
fig, (ax, ax2, cax) = plt.subplots(ncols=3,figsize=(5.5,3),
gridspec_kw={"width_ratios":[1,1, 0.05]})
Example:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np; np.random.seed(1)
fig, (ax, ax2, cax) = plt.subplots(ncols=3,figsize=(5.5,3),
gridspec_kw={"width_ratios":[1,1, 0.05]})
fig.subplots_adjust(wspace=0.3)
im = ax.imshow(np.random.rand(11,8), vmin=0, vmax=1)
im2 = ax2.imshow(np.random.rand(11,8), vmin=0, vmax=1)
ax.set_ylabel("y label")
fig.colorbar(im, cax=cax)
plt.show()
This works well, if the plots' aspect is autoscaled or the images are shrunk due to their aspect in the width direction (as in the above). If, however, the images are wider then high, the result would look as follows, which might be undesired.
A solution to fix the colorbar height to the subplot height would be to use mpl_toolkits.axes_grid1.inset_locator.InsetPosition to set the colorbar axes relative to the image subplot axes.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np; np.random.seed(1)
from mpl_toolkits.axes_grid1.inset_locator import InsetPosition
fig, (ax, ax2, cax) = plt.subplots(ncols=3,figsize=(7,3),
gridspec_kw={"width_ratios":[1,1, 0.05]})
fig.subplots_adjust(wspace=0.3)
im = ax.imshow(np.random.rand(11,16), vmin=0, vmax=1)
im2 = ax2.imshow(np.random.rand(11,16), vmin=0, vmax=1)
ax.set_ylabel("y label")
ip = InsetPosition(ax2, [1.05,0,0.05,1])
cax.set_axes_locator(ip)
fig.colorbar(im, cax=cax, ax=[ax,ax2])
plt.show()

New in matplotlib 3.4.0
Shared colorbars can now be implemented using subfigures:
New Figure.subfigures and Figure.add_subfigure allow ... localized figure artists (e.g., colorbars and suptitles) that only pertain to each subfigure.
The matplotlib gallery includes demos on how to plot subfigures.
Here is a minimal example with 2 subfigures, each with a shared colorbar:
fig = plt.figure(constrained_layout=True)
(subfig_l, subfig_r) = fig.subfigures(nrows=1, ncols=2)
axes_l = subfig_l.subplots(nrows=1, ncols=2, sharey=True)
for ax in axes_l:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10, 10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
# shared colorbar for left subfigure
subfig_l.colorbar(im, ax=axes_l, location='bottom')
axes_r = subfig_r.subplots(nrows=3, ncols=1, sharex=True)
for ax in axes_r:
mesh = ax.pcolormesh(np.random.randn(30, 30), vmin=-2.5, vmax=2.5)
# shared colorbar for right subfigure
subfig_r.colorbar(mesh, ax=axes_r)

The solution of using a list of axes by abevieiramota works very well until you use only one row of images, as pointed out in the comments. Using a reasonable aspect ratio for figsize helps, but is still far from perfect. For example:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=1, ncols=3, figsize=(9.75, 3))
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.ravel().tolist())
plt.show()
The colorbar function provides the shrink parameter which is a scaling factor for the size of the colorbar axes. It does require some manual trial and error. For example:
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.ravel().tolist(), shrink=0.75)

To add to #abevieiramota's excellent answer, you can get the euqivalent of tight_layout with constrained_layout. You will still get large horizontal gaps if you use imshow instead of pcolormesh because of the 1:1 aspect ratio imposed by imshow.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2, constrained_layout=True)
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.pcolormesh(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.flat)
plt.show()

I noticed that almost every solution posted involved ax.imshow(im, ...) and did not normalize the colors displayed to the colorbar for the multiple subfigures. The im mappable is taken from the last instance, but what if the values of the multiple im-s are different? (I'm assuming these mappables are treated in the same way that the contour-sets and surface-sets are treated.) I have an example using a 3d surface plot below that creates two colorbars for a 2x2 subplot (one colorbar per one row). Although the question asks explicitly for a different arrangement, I think the example helps clarify some things. I haven't found a way to do this using plt.subplots(...) yet because of the 3D axes unfortunately.
If only I could position the colorbars in a better way... (There is probably a much better way to do this, but at least it should be not too difficult to follow.)
import matplotlib
from matplotlib import cm
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
cmap = 'plasma'
ncontours = 5
def get_data(row, col):
""" get X, Y, Z, and plot number of subplot
Z > 0 for top row, Z < 0 for bottom row """
if row == 0:
x = np.linspace(1, 10, 10, dtype=int)
X, Y = np.meshgrid(x, x)
Z = np.sqrt(X**2 + Y**2)
if col == 0:
pnum = 1
else:
pnum = 2
elif row == 1:
x = np.linspace(1, 10, 10, dtype=int)
X, Y = np.meshgrid(x, x)
Z = -np.sqrt(X**2 + Y**2)
if col == 0:
pnum = 3
else:
pnum = 4
print("\nPNUM: {}, Zmin = {}, Zmax = {}\n".format(pnum, np.min(Z), np.max(Z)))
return X, Y, Z, pnum
fig = plt.figure()
nrows, ncols = 2, 2
zz = []
axes = []
for row in range(nrows):
for col in range(ncols):
X, Y, Z, pnum = get_data(row, col)
ax = fig.add_subplot(nrows, ncols, pnum, projection='3d')
ax.set_title('row = {}, col = {}'.format(row, col))
fhandle = ax.plot_surface(X, Y, Z, cmap=cmap)
zz.append(Z)
axes.append(ax)
## get full range of Z data as flat list for top and bottom rows
zz_top = zz[0].reshape(-1).tolist() + zz[1].reshape(-1).tolist()
zz_btm = zz[2].reshape(-1).tolist() + zz[3].reshape(-1).tolist()
## get top and bottom axes
ax_top = [axes[0], axes[1]]
ax_btm = [axes[2], axes[3]]
## normalize colors to minimum and maximum values of dataset
norm_top = matplotlib.colors.Normalize(vmin=min(zz_top), vmax=max(zz_top))
norm_btm = matplotlib.colors.Normalize(vmin=min(zz_btm), vmax=max(zz_btm))
cmap = cm.get_cmap(cmap, ncontours) # number of colors on colorbar
mtop = cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=cmap, norm=norm_top)
mbtm = cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=cmap, norm=norm_btm)
for m in (mtop, mbtm):
m.set_array([])
# ## create cax to draw colorbar in
# cax_top = fig.add_axes([0.9, 0.55, 0.05, 0.4])
# cax_btm = fig.add_axes([0.9, 0.05, 0.05, 0.4])
cbar_top = fig.colorbar(mtop, ax=ax_top, orientation='vertical', shrink=0.75, pad=0.2) #, cax=cax_top)
cbar_top.set_ticks(np.linspace(min(zz_top), max(zz_top), ncontours))
cbar_btm = fig.colorbar(mbtm, ax=ax_btm, orientation='vertical', shrink=0.75, pad=0.2) #, cax=cax_btm)
cbar_btm.set_ticks(np.linspace(min(zz_btm), max(zz_btm), ncontours))
plt.show()
plt.close(fig)
## orientation of colorbar = 'horizontal' if done by column

This topic is well covered but I still would like to propose another approach in a slightly different philosophy.
It is a bit more complex to set-up but it allow (in my opinion) a bit more flexibility. For example, one can play with the respective ratios of each subplots / colorbar:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from matplotlib.gridspec import GridSpec
# Define number of rows and columns you want in your figure
nrow = 2
ncol = 3
# Make a new figure
fig = plt.figure(constrained_layout=True)
# Design your figure properties
widths = [3,4,5,1]
gs = GridSpec(nrow, ncol + 1, figure=fig, width_ratios=widths)
# Fill your figure with desired plots
axes = []
for i in range(nrow):
for j in range(ncol):
axes.append(fig.add_subplot(gs[i, j]))
im = axes[-1].pcolormesh(np.random.random((10,10)))
# Shared colorbar
axes.append(fig.add_subplot(gs[:, ncol]))
fig.colorbar(im, cax=axes[-1])
plt.show()

The answers above are great, but most of them use the fig.colobar() method applied to a fig object. This example shows how to use the plt.colobar() function, applied directly to pyplot:
def shared_colorbar_example():
fig, axs = plt.subplots(nrows=3, ncols=3)
for ax in axs.flat:
plt.sca(ax)
color = np.random.random((10))
plt.scatter(range(10), range(10), c=color, cmap='viridis', vmin=0, vmax=1)
plt.colorbar(ax=axs.ravel().tolist(), shrink=0.6)
plt.show()
shared_colorbar_example()
Since most answers above demonstrated usage on 2D matrices, I went with a simple scatter plot. The shrink keyword is optional and resizes the colorbar.
If vmin and vmax are not specified this approach will automatically analyze all of the subplots for the minimum and maximum value to be used on the colorbar. The above approaches when using fig.colorbar(im) scan only the image passed as argument for min and max values of the colorbar.
Result:

Multiplot Seaborn and Axis Specific (as shown) [duplicate]

I've spent entirely too long researching how to get two subplots to share the same y-axis with a single colorbar shared between the two in Matplotlib.
What was happening was that when I called the colorbar() function in either subplot1 or subplot2, it would autoscale the plot such that the colorbar plus the plot would fit inside the 'subplot' bounding box, causing the two side-by-side plots to be two very different sizes.
To get around this, I tried to create a third subplot which I then hacked to render no plot with just a colorbar present.
The only problem is, now the heights and widths of the two plots are uneven, and I can't figure out how to make it look okay.
Here is my code:
from __future__ import division
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from matplotlib import patches
from matplotlib.ticker import NullFormatter
# SIS Functions
TE = 1 # Einstein radius
g1 = lambda x,y: (TE/2) * (y**2-x**2)/((x**2+y**2)**(3/2))
g2 = lambda x,y: -1*TE*x*y / ((x**2+y**2)**(3/2))
kappa = lambda x,y: TE / (2*np.sqrt(x**2+y**2))
coords = np.linspace(-2,2,400)
X,Y = np.meshgrid(coords,coords)
g1out = g1(X,Y)
g2out = g2(X,Y)
kappaout = kappa(X,Y)
for i in range(len(coords)):
for j in range(len(coords)):
if np.sqrt(coords[i]**2+coords[j]**2) <= TE:
g1out[i][j]=0
g2out[i][j]=0
fig = plt.figure()
fig.subplots_adjust(wspace=0,hspace=0)
# subplot number 1
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(1,2,1,aspect='equal',xlim=[-2,2],ylim=[-2,2])
plt.title(r"$\gamma_{1}$",fontsize="18")
plt.xlabel(r"x ($\theta_{E}$)",fontsize="15")
plt.ylabel(r"y ($\theta_{E}$)",rotation='horizontal',fontsize="15")
plt.xticks([-2.0,-1.5,-1.0,-0.5,0,0.5,1.0,1.5])
plt.xticks([-2.0,-1.5,-1.0,-0.5,0,0.5,1.0,1.5])
plt.imshow(g1out,extent=(-2,2,-2,2))
plt.axhline(y=0,linewidth=2,color='k',linestyle="--")
plt.axvline(x=0,linewidth=2,color='k',linestyle="--")
e1 = patches.Ellipse((0,0),2,2,color='white')
ax1.add_patch(e1)
# subplot number 2
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(1,2,2,sharey=ax1,xlim=[-2,2],ylim=[-2,2])
plt.title(r"$\gamma_{2}$",fontsize="18")
plt.xlabel(r"x ($\theta_{E}$)",fontsize="15")
ax2.yaxis.set_major_formatter( NullFormatter() )
plt.axhline(y=0,linewidth=2,color='k',linestyle="--")
plt.axvline(x=0,linewidth=2,color='k',linestyle="--")
plt.imshow(g2out,extent=(-2,2,-2,2))
e2 = patches.Ellipse((0,0),2,2,color='white')
ax2.add_patch(e2)
# subplot for colorbar
ax3 = fig.add_subplot(1,1,1)
ax3.axis('off')
cbar = plt.colorbar(ax=ax2)
plt.show()

Just place the colorbar in its own axis and use subplots_adjust to make room for it.
As a quick example:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2)
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.subplots_adjust(right=0.8)
cbar_ax = fig.add_axes([0.85, 0.15, 0.05, 0.7])
fig.colorbar(im, cax=cbar_ax)
plt.show()
Note that the color range will be set by the last image plotted (that gave rise to im) even if the range of values is set by vmin and vmax. If another plot has, for example, a higher max value, points with higher values than the max of im will show in uniform color.

You can simplify Joe Kington's code using the axparameter of figure.colorbar() with a list of axes.
From the documentation:
ax
None | parent axes object(s) 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.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2)
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.ravel().tolist())
plt.show()

This solution does not require manual tweaking of axes locations or colorbar size, works with multi-row and single-row layouts, and works with tight_layout(). It is adapted from a gallery example, using ImageGrid from matplotlib's AxesGrid Toolbox.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits.axes_grid1 import ImageGrid
# Set up figure and image grid
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(9.75, 3))
grid = ImageGrid(fig, 111, # as in plt.subplot(111)
nrows_ncols=(1,3),
axes_pad=0.15,
share_all=True,
cbar_location="right",
cbar_mode="single",
cbar_size="7%",
cbar_pad=0.15,
)
# Add data to image grid
for ax in grid:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
# Colorbar
ax.cax.colorbar(im)
ax.cax.toggle_label(True)
#plt.tight_layout() # Works, but may still require rect paramater to keep colorbar labels visible
plt.show()

Using make_axes is even easier and gives a better result. It also provides possibilities to customise the positioning of the colorbar.
Also note the option of subplots to share x and y axes.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib as mpl
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2, sharex=True, sharey=True)
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
cax,kw = mpl.colorbar.make_axes([ax for ax in axes.flat])
plt.colorbar(im, cax=cax, **kw)
plt.show()

As a beginner who stumbled across this thread, I'd like to add a python-for-dummies adaptation of abevieiramota's very neat answer (because I'm at the level that I had to look up 'ravel' to work out what their code was doing):
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ((ax1,ax2,ax3),(ax4,ax5,ax6)) = plt.subplots(2,3)
axlist = [ax1,ax2,ax3,ax4,ax5,ax6]
first = ax1.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
third = ax3.imshow(np.random.random((12,12)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.colorbar(first, ax=axlist)
plt.show()
Much less pythonic, much easier for noobs like me to see what's actually happening here.

Shared colormap and colorbar
This is for the more complex case where the values are not just between 0 and 1; the cmap needs to be shared instead of just using the last one.
import numpy as np
from matplotlib.colors import Normalize
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.cm as cm
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2)
cmap=cm.get_cmap('viridis')
normalizer=Normalize(0,4)
im=cm.ScalarMappable(norm=normalizer)
for i,ax in enumerate(axes.flat):
ax.imshow(i+np.random.random((10,10)),cmap=cmap,norm=normalizer)
ax.set_title(str(i))
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.ravel().tolist())
plt.show()

As pointed out in other answers, the idea is usually to define an axes for the colorbar to reside in. There are various ways of doing so; one that hasn't been mentionned yet would be to directly specify the colorbar axes at subplot creation with plt.subplots(). The advantage is that the axes position does not need to be manually set and in all cases with automatic aspect the colorbar will be exactly the same height as the subplots. Even in many cases where images are used the result will be satisfying as shown below.
When using plt.subplots(), the use of gridspec_kw argument allows to make the colorbar axes much smaller than the other axes.
fig, (ax, ax2, cax) = plt.subplots(ncols=3,figsize=(5.5,3),
gridspec_kw={"width_ratios":[1,1, 0.05]})
Example:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np; np.random.seed(1)
fig, (ax, ax2, cax) = plt.subplots(ncols=3,figsize=(5.5,3),
gridspec_kw={"width_ratios":[1,1, 0.05]})
fig.subplots_adjust(wspace=0.3)
im = ax.imshow(np.random.rand(11,8), vmin=0, vmax=1)
im2 = ax2.imshow(np.random.rand(11,8), vmin=0, vmax=1)
ax.set_ylabel("y label")
fig.colorbar(im, cax=cax)
plt.show()
This works well, if the plots' aspect is autoscaled or the images are shrunk due to their aspect in the width direction (as in the above). If, however, the images are wider then high, the result would look as follows, which might be undesired.
A solution to fix the colorbar height to the subplot height would be to use mpl_toolkits.axes_grid1.inset_locator.InsetPosition to set the colorbar axes relative to the image subplot axes.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np; np.random.seed(1)
from mpl_toolkits.axes_grid1.inset_locator import InsetPosition
fig, (ax, ax2, cax) = plt.subplots(ncols=3,figsize=(7,3),
gridspec_kw={"width_ratios":[1,1, 0.05]})
fig.subplots_adjust(wspace=0.3)
im = ax.imshow(np.random.rand(11,16), vmin=0, vmax=1)
im2 = ax2.imshow(np.random.rand(11,16), vmin=0, vmax=1)
ax.set_ylabel("y label")
ip = InsetPosition(ax2, [1.05,0,0.05,1])
cax.set_axes_locator(ip)
fig.colorbar(im, cax=cax, ax=[ax,ax2])
plt.show()

New in matplotlib 3.4.0
Shared colorbars can now be implemented using subfigures:
New Figure.subfigures and Figure.add_subfigure allow ... localized figure artists (e.g., colorbars and suptitles) that only pertain to each subfigure.
The matplotlib gallery includes demos on how to plot subfigures.
Here is a minimal example with 2 subfigures, each with a shared colorbar:
fig = plt.figure(constrained_layout=True)
(subfig_l, subfig_r) = fig.subfigures(nrows=1, ncols=2)
axes_l = subfig_l.subplots(nrows=1, ncols=2, sharey=True)
for ax in axes_l:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10, 10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
# shared colorbar for left subfigure
subfig_l.colorbar(im, ax=axes_l, location='bottom')
axes_r = subfig_r.subplots(nrows=3, ncols=1, sharex=True)
for ax in axes_r:
mesh = ax.pcolormesh(np.random.randn(30, 30), vmin=-2.5, vmax=2.5)
# shared colorbar for right subfigure
subfig_r.colorbar(mesh, ax=axes_r)

The solution of using a list of axes by abevieiramota works very well until you use only one row of images, as pointed out in the comments. Using a reasonable aspect ratio for figsize helps, but is still far from perfect. For example:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=1, ncols=3, figsize=(9.75, 3))
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.imshow(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.ravel().tolist())
plt.show()
The colorbar function provides the shrink parameter which is a scaling factor for the size of the colorbar axes. It does require some manual trial and error. For example:
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.ravel().tolist(), shrink=0.75)

To add to #abevieiramota's excellent answer, you can get the euqivalent of tight_layout with constrained_layout. You will still get large horizontal gaps if you use imshow instead of pcolormesh because of the 1:1 aspect ratio imposed by imshow.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=2, constrained_layout=True)
for ax in axes.flat:
im = ax.pcolormesh(np.random.random((10,10)), vmin=0, vmax=1)
fig.colorbar(im, ax=axes.flat)
plt.show()

I noticed that almost every solution posted involved ax.imshow(im, ...) and did not normalize the colors displayed to the colorbar for the multiple subfigures. The im mappable is taken from the last instance, but what if the values of the multiple im-s are different? (I'm assuming these mappables are treated in the same way that the contour-sets and surface-sets are treated.) I have an example using a 3d surface plot below that creates two colorbars for a 2x2 subplot (one colorbar per one row). Although the question asks explicitly for a different arrangement, I think the example helps clarify some things. I haven't found a way to do this using plt.subplots(...) yet because of the 3D axes unfortunately.
If only I could position the colorbars in a better way... (There is probably a much better way to do this, but at least it should be not too difficult to follow.)
import matplotlib
from matplotlib import cm
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
cmap = 'plasma'
ncontours = 5
def get_data(row, col):
""" get X, Y, Z, and plot number of subplot
Z > 0 for top row, Z < 0 for bottom row """
if row == 0:
x = np.linspace(1, 10, 10, dtype=int)
X, Y = np.meshgrid(x, x)
Z = np.sqrt(X**2 + Y**2)
if col == 0:
pnum = 1
else:
pnum = 2
elif row == 1:
x = np.linspace(1, 10, 10, dtype=int)
X, Y = np.meshgrid(x, x)
Z = -np.sqrt(X**2 + Y**2)
if col == 0:
pnum = 3
else:
pnum = 4
print("\nPNUM: {}, Zmin = {}, Zmax = {}\n".format(pnum, np.min(Z), np.max(Z)))
return X, Y, Z, pnum
fig = plt.figure()
nrows, ncols = 2, 2
zz = []
axes = []
for row in range(nrows):
for col in range(ncols):
X, Y, Z, pnum = get_data(row, col)
ax = fig.add_subplot(nrows, ncols, pnum, projection='3d')
ax.set_title('row = {}, col = {}'.format(row, col))
fhandle = ax.plot_surface(X, Y, Z, cmap=cmap)
zz.append(Z)
axes.append(ax)
## get full range of Z data as flat list for top and bottom rows
zz_top = zz[0].reshape(-1).tolist() + zz[1].reshape(-1).tolist()
zz_btm = zz[2].reshape(-1).tolist() + zz[3].reshape(-1).tolist()
## get top and bottom axes
ax_top = [axes[0], axes[1]]
ax_btm = [axes[2], axes[3]]
## normalize colors to minimum and maximum values of dataset
norm_top = matplotlib.colors.Normalize(vmin=min(zz_top), vmax=max(zz_top))
norm_btm = matplotlib.colors.Normalize(vmin=min(zz_btm), vmax=max(zz_btm))
cmap = cm.get_cmap(cmap, ncontours) # number of colors on colorbar
mtop = cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=cmap, norm=norm_top)
mbtm = cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=cmap, norm=norm_btm)
for m in (mtop, mbtm):
m.set_array([])
# ## create cax to draw colorbar in
# cax_top = fig.add_axes([0.9, 0.55, 0.05, 0.4])
# cax_btm = fig.add_axes([0.9, 0.05, 0.05, 0.4])
cbar_top = fig.colorbar(mtop, ax=ax_top, orientation='vertical', shrink=0.75, pad=0.2) #, cax=cax_top)
cbar_top.set_ticks(np.linspace(min(zz_top), max(zz_top), ncontours))
cbar_btm = fig.colorbar(mbtm, ax=ax_btm, orientation='vertical', shrink=0.75, pad=0.2) #, cax=cax_btm)
cbar_btm.set_ticks(np.linspace(min(zz_btm), max(zz_btm), ncontours))
plt.show()
plt.close(fig)
## orientation of colorbar = 'horizontal' if done by column

This topic is well covered but I still would like to propose another approach in a slightly different philosophy.
It is a bit more complex to set-up but it allow (in my opinion) a bit more flexibility. For example, one can play with the respective ratios of each subplots / colorbar:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from matplotlib.gridspec import GridSpec
# Define number of rows and columns you want in your figure
nrow = 2
ncol = 3
# Make a new figure
fig = plt.figure(constrained_layout=True)
# Design your figure properties
widths = [3,4,5,1]
gs = GridSpec(nrow, ncol + 1, figure=fig, width_ratios=widths)
# Fill your figure with desired plots
axes = []
for i in range(nrow):
for j in range(ncol):
axes.append(fig.add_subplot(gs[i, j]))
im = axes[-1].pcolormesh(np.random.random((10,10)))
# Shared colorbar
axes.append(fig.add_subplot(gs[:, ncol]))
fig.colorbar(im, cax=axes[-1])
plt.show()

The answers above are great, but most of them use the fig.colobar() method applied to a fig object. This example shows how to use the plt.colobar() function, applied directly to pyplot:
def shared_colorbar_example():
fig, axs = plt.subplots(nrows=3, ncols=3)
for ax in axs.flat:
plt.sca(ax)
color = np.random.random((10))
plt.scatter(range(10), range(10), c=color, cmap='viridis', vmin=0, vmax=1)
plt.colorbar(ax=axs.ravel().tolist(), shrink=0.6)
plt.show()
shared_colorbar_example()
Since most answers above demonstrated usage on 2D matrices, I went with a simple scatter plot. The shrink keyword is optional and resizes the colorbar.
If vmin and vmax are not specified this approach will automatically analyze all of the subplots for the minimum and maximum value to be used on the colorbar. The above approaches when using fig.colorbar(im) scan only the image passed as argument for min and max values of the colorbar.
Result:

How to change the size of plot with equal aspect ratio?

It seems that I can't have both setting equal axes scales AND setting the size of the plot. What I'm doing is:
fig = pl.figure(figsize=(20,20))
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
ax.set_aspect('equal')
If I remove the figsize the plot seems to have equal scales, but with figsize I have a bigger plot but the scales aren't equal anymore.
Edit: The graph does not necessarily have to be square, just bigger.. please assume that I don't now the exact ratio of the axes
Any solutions?
Thanks

If you want to change the data limits to make the axes square, add datalim to your call to set_aspect:
ax.set_aspect('equal', 'datalim')
If you want the scaling to change so that the limits are different but the axes look square, you can calculate the axis size ratio and set it explicitly:
ax.set_aspect(1./ax.get_data_ratio())
e.g.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(7,7))
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
x = np.linspace(0,np.pi,1000)
y = np.sin(3*x)**2
ax.plot(x,y)
ax.set_aspect('equal', 'datalim')
plt.show()
or
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(7,7))
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
x = np.linspace(0,np.pi,1000)
y = np.sin(3*x)**2
ax.plot(x,y)
ax.set_aspect(1./ax.get_data_ratio())
plt.show()

matplotlib: Unexpected gridspec behavior

I try to plot two plots vertically within one figure using gridspec. The upper one is supposed to be twice as high as the lower one (i.e. the ratio is 2:1 with 3 equal vertical parts) and they have to share the x-axis scale. I have the following minimal example, which produces the correct 3-part plot, but it does not span the upper subplot twice as high as the lower one. The first plot is at the top third, the second is in the bottom third, and the middle is emptyWhere is the error?
import matplotlib.gridspec as gridspec
x = y = [1,2,3]
gs = gridspec.GridSpec(3, 1)
ax1 = plt.subplot(gs[0:1, 0])
ax1.plot(x, y)
ax2 = plt.subplot(gs[2, 0], sharex=ax1)
ax2.plot(x,y)
plt.show()

When using gridspec the indexing acts similarly to numpy arrays. As such you need gs[0:2, 0] to get the output that you want.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import gridspec
x = y = [1,2,3]
gs = gridspec.GridSpec(3, 1)
ax1 = plt.subplot(gs[0:2, 0])
ax1.plot(x, y)
ax2 = plt.subplot(gs[2, 0], sharex=ax1)
ax2.plot(x,y)
plt.show()
Note that you could use plt.tight_layout() to remove the overlap of axis

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