Creating sparklines using matplotlib in python - python

I am working on matplotlib and created some graphs like bar chart, bubble chart and others.
Can some one please explain with an example what is difference between line graph and sparkline graph and how to draw spark line graphs in python using matplotlib ?
for example with the following code
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
x=[1,2,3,4,5]
y=[5,7,2,6,2]
plt.plot(x, y)
plt.show()
the line graph generated is the following:
But I couldn't get what is the difference between a line chart and a spark lien chart for the same data. Please help me understand

A sparkline is the same as a line plot but without axes or coordinates. They can be used to show the "shape" of the data in a compact way.
You can cram several line plots in the same figure just by using subplots and changing properties of the resulting Axes for each subplot:
data = np.cumsum(np.random.rand(1000)-0.5)
data = data - np.mean(data)
fig = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(411) # nrows, ncols, plot_number, top sparkline
ax1.plot(data, 'b-')
ax1.axhline(c='grey', alpha=0.5)
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(412, sharex=ax1)
ax2.plot(data, 'g-')
ax2.axhline(c='grey', alpha=0.5)
ax3 = fig.add_subplot(413, sharex=ax1)
ax3.plot(data, 'y-')
ax3.axhline(c='grey', alpha=0.5)
ax4 = fig.add_subplot(414, sharex=ax1) # bottom sparkline
ax4.plot(data, 'r-')
ax4.axhline(c='grey', alpha=0.5)
for axes in [ax1, ax2, ax3, ax4]: # remove all borders
plt.setp(axes.get_xticklabels(), visible=False)
plt.setp(axes.get_yticklabels(), visible=False)
plt.setp(axes.get_xticklines(), visible=False)
plt.setp(axes.get_yticklines(), visible=False)
plt.setp(axes.spines.values(), visible=False)
# bottom sparkline
plt.setp(ax4.get_xticklabels(), visible=True)
plt.setp(ax4.get_xticklines(), visible=True)
ax4.xaxis.tick_bottom() # but onlyt the lower x ticks not x ticks at the top
plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

A sparkline graph is just a regular plot with all the axis removed. quite simple to do with matplotlib:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
# create some random data
x = np.cumsum(np.random.rand(1000)-0.5)
# plot it
fig, ax = plt.subplots(1,1,figsize=(10,3))
plt.plot(x, color='k')
plt.plot(len(x)-1, x[-1], color='r', marker='o')
# remove all the axes
for k,v in ax.spines.items():
v.set_visible(False)
ax.set_xticks([])
ax.set_yticks([])
#show it
plt.show()

Related

How do you controle zorder across twinx in matplotlib?

I'm trying to control the zorder of different plots across twinx axes. How can I get the blue noisy plots to appear in the background and the orange smoothed plots to appear in the foreground in this plot?
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from scipy.signal import savgol_filter
random = np.random.RandomState(0)
x1 = np.linspace(-10,10,500)**3 + random.normal(0, 100, size=500)
x2 = np.linspace(-10,10,500)**2 + random.normal(0, 100, size=500)
fig,ax1 = plt.subplots()
ax1.plot(x1, zorder=0)
ax1.plot(savgol_filter(x1,99,2), zorder=1)
ax2 = ax1.twinx()
ax2.plot(x2, zorder=0)
ax2.plot(savgol_filter(x2,99,2), zorder=1)
plt.show()
Similar to this thread, though not ideal, this is an approach using twiny along with twinx.
# set up plots
fig, ax1 = plt.subplots()
ax2 = ax1.twinx()
ax3 = ax1.twiny()
ax4 = ax2.twiny()
# background
ax1.plot(x1)
ax2.plot(x2)
# smoothed
ax3.plot(savgol_filter(x1,99,2), c='orange')
ax4.plot(savgol_filter(x2,99,2), c='orange')
# turn off extra ticks and labels
ax3.tick_params(axis='x', which='both', bottom=False, top=False)
ax4.tick_params(axis='x', which='both', bottom=False, top=False)
ax3.set_xticklabels([])
ax4.set_xticklabels([])
# fix zorder
ax1.set_zorder(1)
ax2.set_zorder(2)
ax3.set_zorder(3)
ax4.set_zorder(4)
plt.show()
Output:

All gridlines below plot line - with twin x-axis [Matplotlib]

I'm using matplotlib to produce a plot where I want to show labels on the right and left y-axis. You will notice by running the code that the grid-lines formed by the right-side y-axis appear on top of the plot line, where the left-side lines appear below. I would like them all to appear below the plot. I've tried zorder and set_axisbelow(True) without success.
Example code below:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib as mpl
import numpy as np
t = np.linspace(0,5)
x = np.exp(-t)*np.sin(2*t)
fig, ax1 = plt.subplots()
ax1.plot(t, x)
ax2 = ax1.twinx()
ax2.plot(t, x, alpha=0.0)
ax1.set_xticks([0,1,2])
ax1.set_yticks([0.1, 0.2])
ax2.set_yticks([0.3, 0.4, 0.5])
ax1.grid(True, color='lightgray')
ax2.grid(True, color='lightgray')
for a in [ax1, ax2]:
a.spines["top"].set_visible(False)
a.spines["right"].set_visible(False)
a.spines["left"].set_visible(False)
a.spines["bottom"].set_visible(False)
ax1.set_axisbelow(True)
ax2.set_axisbelow(True)
plt.savefig('fig.pdf')
plt.show()

ax.grid overwrites ticks labels when spine is in centre

When using ax.grid() and moving the spines to the middle of the plot, the grid lines go over the axes labels. Any way to stop this and move the axes labels to "front"?
EDIT: It is the ticks labels (the numbers) I'm interested in fixing, not the axis label, which can be easily moved.
EDIT: made the MWE and image match exactly
EDIT: matplotlib version 2.0.0
#!/usr/bin/env python
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
fig = plt.figure()
ax = plt.gca()
ax.minorticks_on()
ax.grid(b=True, which='major', color='k', linestyle='-',alpha=1,linewidth=1)
ax.grid(b=True, which='minor', color='k', linestyle='-',alpha=1,linewidth=1)
x = np.linspace(-5,5,100)
y = np.linspace(-5,5,100)
plt.plot(x,y)
plt.yticks([-5,-4,-3,-2,-1,0,1,2,3,4,5])
ax.spines['left'].set_position(('data', 0))
plt.show()

How to decide which bars are plotted on top/last in overlay of 2 Pandas bar plots where one plot uses alpha [duplicate]

In pyplot, you can change the order of different graphs using the zorder option or by changing the order of the plot() commands. However, when you add an alternative axis via ax2 = twinx(), the new axis will always overlay the old axis (as described in the documentation).
Is it possible to change the order of the axis to move the alternative (twinned) y-axis to background?
In the example below, I would like to display the blue line on top of the histogram:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import random
# Data
x = np.arange(-3.0, 3.01, 0.1)
y = np.power(x,2)
y2 = 1/np.sqrt(2*np.pi) * np.exp(-y/2)
data = [random.gauss(0.0, 1.0) for i in range(1000)]
# Plot figure
fig = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(111)
ax2 = ax1.twinx()
ax2.hist(data, bins=40, normed=True, color='g',zorder=0)
ax2.plot(x, y2, color='r', linewidth=2, zorder=2)
ax1.plot(x, y, color='b', linewidth=2, zorder=5)
ax1.set_ylabel("Parabola")
ax2.set_ylabel("Normal distribution")
ax1.yaxis.label.set_color('b')
ax2.yaxis.label.set_color('r')
plt.show()
Edit: For some reason, I am unable to upload the image generated by this code. I will try again later.
You can set the zorder of an axes, ax.set_zorder(). One would then need to remove the background of that axes, such that the axes below is still visible.
ax2 = ax1.twinx()
ax1.set_zorder(10)
ax1.patch.set_visible(False)

Rotate x tick labels using subplots

As the title describes, I am using the subplots method to make bar charts. Everything works well but I can't figure out how to rotate the x tick labels. My graphing code is:
f, axarr = plt.subplots(2, sharex=True)
axarr[0].set_xticklabels(file2_temp)
axarr[0].xaxis.set_ticks(y)
axarr[0].bar(np.arange(len(file_temp)), stddev_temp, align='center', alpha=0.4)
axarr[1].bar(np.arange(len(file_RH)), stddev_RH, align='center', alpha=0.4)
axarr[1].tick_params(axis='x', pad=30)
plt.show()
Where file2_temp and RH are lists and stddev_temp and RH are my data.
Any help would be great. Thanks!
You can rotate ticks using setp.
Here's an example modified from your your post:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from numpy.random import rand
import numpy as np
f, axarr = plt.subplots(2, sharex=True)
axarr[0].bar(np.arange(1,11), rand(10), align='center', alpha=0.4)
axarr[1].bar(np.arange(1,11), rand(10), align='center', alpha=0.4)
axarr[1].tick_params(axis='x', pad=30)
plt.setp(plt.xticks()[1], rotation=45)
plt.show()

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