I have a Pyplot plot, which I want to add gridlines to. I did this using:
plt.grid(True)
I then removed my x ticks using:
ax1.xaxis.set_visible(False)
My x ticks were removed, but so were the x grid lines. I would like them to stay.
Is there a way I can do this please?
Try this:
plt.grid(True)
ax.xaxis.set_ticklabels([])
It should work. The grid will be intact, but there won't be any tick labels. If you don't want the ticks too, add:
ax.xaxis.set_ticks_position('none')
from matplotlib.ticker import NullFormatter
ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(NullFormatter())
Related
I have a semilogx plot and I would like to remove the xticks. I tried:
plt.gca().set_xticks([])
plt.xticks([])
ax.set_xticks([])
The grid disappears (ok), but small ticks (at the place of the main ticks) remain. How to remove them?
The plt.tick_params method is very useful for stuff like this. This code turns off major and minor ticks and removes the labels from the x-axis.
Note that there is also ax.tick_params for matplotlib.axes.Axes objects.
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
plt.plot(range(10))
plt.tick_params(
axis='x', # changes apply to the x-axis
which='both', # both major and minor ticks are affected
bottom=False, # ticks along the bottom edge are off
top=False, # ticks along the top edge are off
labelbottom=False) # labels along the bottom edge are off
plt.show()
plt.savefig('plot')
plt.clf()
Not exactly what the OP was asking for, but a simple way to disable all axes lines, ticks and labels is to simply call:
plt.axis('off')
Alternatively, you can pass an empty tick position and label as
# for matplotlib.pyplot
# ---------------------
plt.xticks([], [])
# for axis object
# ---------------
# from Anakhand May 5 at 13:08
# for major ticks
ax.set_xticks([])
# for minor ticks
ax.set_xticks([], minor=True)
Here is an alternative solution that I found on the matplotlib mailing list:
import matplotlib.pylab as plt
x = range(1000)
ax = plt.axes()
ax.semilogx(x, x)
ax.xaxis.set_ticks_position('none')
There is a better, and simpler, solution than the one given by John Vinyard. Use NullLocator:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.plot(range(10))
plt.gca().xaxis.set_major_locator(plt.NullLocator())
plt.show()
plt.savefig('plot')
Try this to remove the labels (but not the ticks):
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.setp( ax.get_xticklabels(), visible=False)
example
This snippet might help in removing the xticks only.
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
plt.xticks([])
This snippet might help in removing the xticks and yticks both.
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
plt.xticks([]),plt.yticks([])
Those of you looking for a short command to switch off all ticks and labels should be fine with
plt.tick_params(top=False, bottom=False, left=False, right=False,
labelleft=False, labelbottom=False)
which allows type bool for respective parameters since version matplotlib>=2.1.1
For custom tick settings, the docs are helpful:
https://matplotlib.org/api/_as_gen/matplotlib.axes.Axes.tick_params.html
# remove all the ticks (both axes), and tick labels on the Y axis
plt.tick_params(top='off', bottom='off', left='off', right='off', labelleft='off', labelbottom='on')
Modify the following rc parameters by adding the commands to the script:
plt.rcParams['xtick.bottom'] = False
plt.rcParams['xtick.labelbottom'] = False
A sample matplotlibrc file is depicted in this section of the matplotlib documentation, which lists many other parameters like changing figure size, color of figure, animation settings, etc.
A simple solution to this problem is to set the color of the xticks to White or to whatever the background color is. This will hide the text of the xticks but not the xticks itself.
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.plot()
plt.xticks(color='white')
plt.show()
Result
I have the following issue displayed in the image below:
For an improved clarity I want do delete the stripes on the x axis or put them below the x axis. (Also it would be nice If you know a solution to the problem of overlapping numbers)
Assuming you have defined your plot and axes as below:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
If you want to remove the x axis tick marks you can do:
ax.tick_params(axis='x', top='off', bottom='off')
If you want to change the direction of the tick marks you can do:
ax.tick_params(axis='x', direction='out')
If you want to change the x axis labels then use:
set_xticklabels()
You have to pass a list of labels to use, although I'm not sure why your labels aren't evenly spaced. The documentation at the link below should help:
matplotlib.axes documentation
This seems like it should be easy - but I can't see how to do it:
I have a plot with time on the X-axis. I want to set two sets of ticks, minor ticks showing the hour of the day and major ticks showing the day/month. So I do this:
# set date ticks to something sensible:
xax = ax.get_xaxis()
xax.set_major_locator(dates.DayLocator())
xax.set_major_formatter(dates.DateFormatter('%d/%b'))
xax.set_minor_locator(dates.HourLocator(byhour=range(0,24,3)))
xax.set_minor_formatter(dates.DateFormatter('%H'))
This labels the ticks ok, but the major tick labels (day/month) are drawn on top of the minor tick labels:
How do I force the major tick labels to get plotted below the minor ones? I tried putting newline escape characters (\n) in the DateFormatter, but it is a poor solution as the vertical spacing is not quite right.
Any advice would be appreciated!
You can use axis method set_tick_params() with the keyword pad. Compare following example.
import datetime
import random
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.dates as dates
# make up some data
x = [datetime.datetime.now() + datetime.timedelta(hours=i) for i in range(100)]
y = [i+random.gauss(0,1) for i,_ in enumerate(x)]
# plot
plt.plot(x,y)
# beautify the x-labels
plt.gcf().autofmt_xdate()
ax = plt.gca()
# set date ticks to something sensible:
xax = ax.get_xaxis()
xax.set_major_locator(dates.DayLocator())
xax.set_major_formatter(dates.DateFormatter('%d/%b'))
xax.set_minor_locator(dates.HourLocator(byhour=range(0,24,3)))
xax.set_minor_formatter(dates.DateFormatter('%H'))
xax.set_tick_params(which='major', pad=15)
plt.show()
PS: This example is borrowed from moooeeeep
Here's how the above snippet would render:
Matplotlib newbie here.
I have the following code:
from pylab import figure, show
import numpy
fig = figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
plot_data=[1.7,1.7,1.7,1.54,1.52]
xdata = range(len(plot_data))
labels = ["2009-June","2009-Dec","2010-June","2010-Dec","2011-June"]
ax.plot(xdata,plot_data,"b-")
ax.set_xticks(range(len(labels)))
ax.set_xticklabels(labels)
ax.set_yticks([1.4,1.6,1.8])
fig.canvas.draw()
show()
When you run that code, the resulting chart has a run-in with the first tick label (2009-June) and the origin. How can I get the graph to move over to make that more readable? I tried to put dummy data in, but then Matplotlib (correctly) treats that as data.
add two limits to the x and y axes to shift the tick labels a bit.
# grow the y axis down by 0.05
ax.set_ylim(1.35, 1.8)
# expand the x axis by 0.5 at two ends
ax.set_xlim(-0.5, len(labels)-0.5)
the result is
Because tick labels are text objects you can change their alignment. However to get access to the text properties you need to go through the set_yticklabels function. So add the line:
ax.set_yticklabels([1.4,1.6,1.8],va="bottom")
after your set_yticks call. Alternatively if you go through the pylab library directly, instead of accessing the function through the axes object, you can just set that in one line:
pylab.yticks([1.4,1.6,1.8],va="bottom")
I suggest change Y axis limits:
ax.set_ylim([1.2, 1.8])
If I create a plot with matplotlib using the following code:
import numpy as np
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
xx = np.arange(0,5, .5)
yy = np.random.random( len(xx) )
plt.plot(xx,yy)
plt.imshow()
I get a result that looks like the attached image. The problem is the
bottom-most y-tick label overlaps the left-most x-tick label. This
looks unprofessional. I was wondering if there was an automatic
way to delete the bottom-most y-tick label, so I don't have
the overlap problem. The fewer lines of code, the better.
In the ticker module there is a class called MaxNLocator that can take a prune kwarg.
Using that you can remove the first tick:
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.ticker import MaxNLocator
import numpy as np
xx = np.arange(0,5, .5)
yy = np.random.random( len(xx) )
plt.plot(xx,yy)
plt.gca().xaxis.set_major_locator(MaxNLocator(prune='lower'))
plt.show()
Result:
You can pad the ticks on the x-axis:
ax.tick_params(axis='x', pad=15)
Replace ax with plt.gca() if you haven't stored the variable ax for the current figure.
You can also pad both the axes removing the axis parameter.
A very elegant way to fix the overlapping problem is increasing the padding of the x- and y-tick labels (i.e. the distance to the axis). Leaving out the corner most label might not always be wanted. In my opinion, in general it looks nice if the labels are a little bit farther from the axis than given by the default configuration.
The padding can be changed via the matplotlibrc file or in your plot script by using the commands
import matplotlib as mpl
mpl.rcParams['xtick.major.pad'] = 8
mpl.rcParams['ytick.major.pad'] = 8
Most times, a padding of 6 is also sufficient.
This is answered in detail here. Basically, you use something like this:
plt.xticks([list of tick locations], [list of tick lables])