[FIXED] How to make more than 10 subplots in a figure?

Issue

I am trying to make a 5x4 grid of subplots, and from looking at examples it seems to me that the best way is:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.figure()
plt.subplot(221)

where the first two numbers in the subplot (22) indicate that it is a 2x2 grid and the third number indicates which one of the 4 you are making. However, when I tried this I had to go up to:

plt.subplot(5420)

and I got the error:

ValueError: Integer subplot specification must be a three digit number.  Not 4

So does that mean you cannot make more that 10 subplots, or is there a way around it, or am I misunderstanding how it works?

Thank you in advance.

Solution

You are probably looking for GridSpec. You can state the size of your grid (5,4) and the position for each plot (row = 0, column = 2, i.e. - 0,2). Check the following example:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.figure(0)
ax1 = plt.subplot2grid((5,4), (0,0))
ax2 = plt.subplot2grid((5,4), (1,1))
ax3 = plt.subplot2grid((5,4), (2, 2))
ax4 = plt.subplot2grid((5,4), (3, 3))
ax5 = plt.subplot2grid((5,4), (4, 0))
plt.show()

, which results in this:

Should you build nested loops to make your full grid:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.figure(0)
for i in range(5):
    for j in range(4):
        plt.subplot2grid((5,4), (i,j))
plt.show()

, you'll obtain this:

The plots works the same as in any subplot (call it directly from the axes you've created):

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

plt.figure(0)
plots = []
for i in range(5):
    for j in range(4):
        ax = plt.subplot2grid((5,4), (i,j))
        ax.scatter(range(20),range(20)+np.random.randint(-5,5,20))
plt.show()

, resulting in this:

Notice that you can provide different sizes to plots (stating number of columns and rows for each plot):

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.figure(0)
ax1 = plt.subplot2grid((3,3), (0,0), colspan=3)
ax2 = plt.subplot2grid((3,3), (1,0), colspan=2)
ax3 = plt.subplot2grid((3,3), (1, 2), rowspan=2)
ax4 = plt.subplot2grid((3,3), (2, 0))
ax5 = plt.subplot2grid((3,3), (2, 1))
plt.show()

, therefore:

In the link I gave in the beginning you will also find examples to remove labels among other stuff.

Answered By - armatita