View reading-notes on GitHub

Matplotlib Tutorial

What is Matplotlib?

Matplotlib is a low level graph plotting library in python that serves as a visualization utility.

Matplotlib was created by John D. Hunter.

Matplotlib is open source and we can use it freely.

Matplotlib is mostly written in python, a few segments are written in C, Objective-C and Javascript for Platform compatibility.

Installation of Matplotlib

If you have Python and PIP already installed on a system, then installation of Matplotlib is very easy.

Install it using this command:

install matplotlib

Import Matplotlib

Once Matplotlib is installed, import it in your applications by adding the import module statement:

import matplotlib

Now Matplotlib is imported and ready to use:

Matplotlib Pyplot

Pyplot

Most of the Matplotlib utilities lies under the pyplot submodule, and are usually imported under the plt alias:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

Now the Pyplot package can be referred to as plt.

Example

Draw a line in a diagram from position (0,0) to position (6,250):

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

xpoints = np.array([0, 6])
ypoints = np.array([0, 250])

plt.plot(xpoints, ypoints)
plt.show()

Result:

0

Matplotlib Plotting

Plotting x and y points

The plot() function is used to draw points (markers) in a diagram.

By default, the plot() function draws a line from point to point.

The function takes parameters for specifying points in the diagram.

Parameter 1 is an array containing the points on the x-axis.

Parameter 2 is an array containing the points on the y-axis.

If we need to plot a line from (1, 3) to (8, 10), we have to pass two arrays [1, 8] and [3, 10] to the plot function.

Example

Draw a line in a diagram from position (1, 3) to position (8, 10):

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

xpoints = np.array([1, 8])
ypoints = np.array([3, 10])

plt.plot(xpoints, ypoints)
plt.show()

Result:

1

Plotting Without Line

To plot only the markers, you can use shortcut string notation parameter ‘o’, which means ‘rings’.

Example

Draw two points in the diagram, one at position (1, 3) and one in position (8, 10):

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

xpoints = np.array([1, 8])
ypoints = np.array([3, 10])

plt.plot(xpoints, ypoints, 'o')
plt.show()

Result:

2

Multiple Points

You can plot as many points as you like, just make sure you have the same number of points in both axis.

Example

Draw a line in a diagram from position (1, 3) to (2, 8) then to (6, 1) and finally to position (8, 10):

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

xpoints = np.array([1, 2, 6, 8])
ypoints = np.array([3, 8, 1, 10])

plt.plot(xpoints, ypoints)
plt.show()

Result:

3

Default X-Points

If we do not specify the points in the x-axis, they will get the default values 0, 1, 2, 3, (etc. depending on the length of the y-points.

So, if we take the same example as above, and leave out the x-points, the diagram will look like this:

Example

Plotting without x-points:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

ypoints = np.array([3, 8, 1, 10, 5, 7])

plt.plot(ypoints)
plt.show()

Result:

4