Subplot

Questions to David Rotermund

matplotlib.pyplot.subplot

matplotlib.pyplot.subplot(*args, **kwargs)

Add an Axes to the current figure or retrieve an existing Axes. This is a wrapper of Figure.add_subplot which provides additional behavior when working with the implicit API (see the notes section).

*args: int, (int, int, index), or SubplotSpec, default: (1, 1, 1)

The position of the subplot described by one of

• Three integers (nrows, ncols, index). The subplot will take the index position on a grid with nrows rows and ncols columns. index starts at 1 in the upper left corner and increases to the right. index can also be a two-tuple specifying the (first, last) indices (1-based, and including last) of the subplot, e.g., fig.add_subplot(3, 1, (1, 2)) makes a subplot that spans the upper 2/3 of the figure.
• A 3-digit integer. The digits are interpreted as if given separately as three single-digit integers, i.e. fig.add_subplot(235) is the same as fig.add_subplot(2, 3, 5). Note that this can only be used if there are no more than 9 subplots.

import numpy as np

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

rng = np.random.default_rng()

plt.figure(1)
plt.subplot(2, 2, 1)
plt.imshow(rng.random((10, 100)))
plt.title("A")
plt.subplot(2, 2, 2)
plt.imshow(rng.random((5, 10)))
plt.title("B")
plt.subplot(2, 2, 3)
plt.imshow(rng.random((50, 20)))
plt.title("C")
plt.subplot(2, 2, 4)
plt.imshow(rng.random((100, 200)))
plt.title("D")
plt.show()

matplotlib.pyplot.subplots_adjust

matplotlib.pyplot.subplots_adjust(left=None, bottom=None, right=None, top=None, wspace=None, hspace=None)

Adjust the subplot layout parameters. Unset parameters are left unmodified; initial values are given by rcParams[“figure.subplot.[name]”].

left: float, optional

The position of the left edge of the subplots, as a fraction of the figure width.

right: float, optional

The position of the right edge of the subplots, as a fraction of the figure width.

bottom: float, optional

The position of the bottom edge of the subplots, as a fraction of the figure height.

top: float, optional

The position of the top edge of the subplots, as a fraction of the figure height.

wspace: float, optional

The width of the padding between subplots, as a fraction of the average Axes width.

hspace: float, optional

The height of the padding between subplots, as a fraction of the average Axes height.

The parameter meanings (and suggested defaults) are:

left = 0.125  # the left side of the subplots of the figure​
right = 0.9   # the right side of the subplots of the figure​
bottom = 0.1  # the bottom of the subplots of the figure​
top = 0.9     # the top of the subplots of the figure​
wspace = 0.2  # the amount of width reserved for space between subplots,​
              # expressed as a fraction of the average axis width​
hspace = 0.2  # the amount of height reserved for space between subplots,​
              # expressed as a fraction of the average axis height

import numpy as np

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

rng = np.random.default_rng()

plt.figure(1)
plt.subplot(2, 2, 1)
plt.imshow(rng.random((10, 10)))
plt.title("A")
plt.subplot(2, 2, 2)
plt.imshow(rng.random((10, 10)))
plt.title("B")
plt.subplot(2, 2, 3)
plt.imshow(rng.random((10, 10)))
plt.title("C")
plt.subplot(2, 2, 4)
plt.imshow(rng.random((10, 10)))
plt.title("D")

plt.subplots_adjust(left=0.01, right=1.0, bottom=0.1, top=1.0, wspace=-0.5, hspace=0.4)

plt.show()