pylab_examples example code: pcolor_demo.py

(Source code, png, pdf)

"""
Demonstrates similarities between pcolor, pcolormesh, imshow and pcolorfast
for drawing quadrilateral grids.

"""
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

# make these smaller to increase the resolution
dx, dy = 0.15, 0.05

# generate 2 2d grids for the x & y bounds
y, x = np.mgrid[slice(-3, 3 + dy, dy),
                slice(-3, 3 + dx, dx)]
z = (1 - x / 2. + x ** 5 + y ** 3) * np.exp(-x ** 2 - y ** 2)
# x and y are bounds, so z should be the value *inside* those bounds.
# Therefore, remove the last value from the z array.
z = z[:-1, :-1]
z_min, z_max = -np.abs(z).max(), np.abs(z).max()


plt.subplot(2, 2, 1)
plt.pcolor(x, y, z, cmap='RdBu', vmin=z_min, vmax=z_max)
plt.title('pcolor')
# set the limits of the plot to the limits of the data
plt.axis([x.min(), x.max(), y.min(), y.max()])
plt.colorbar()


plt.subplot(2, 2, 2)
plt.pcolormesh(x, y, z, cmap='RdBu', vmin=z_min, vmax=z_max)
plt.title('pcolormesh')
# set the limits of the plot to the limits of the data
plt.axis([x.min(), x.max(), y.min(), y.max()])
plt.colorbar()


plt.subplot(2, 2, 3)
plt.imshow(z, cmap='RdBu', vmin=z_min, vmax=z_max,
           extent=[x.min(), x.max(), y.min(), y.max()],
           interpolation='nearest', origin='lower')
plt.title('image (nearest)')
plt.colorbar()


ax = plt.subplot(2, 2, 4)
ax.pcolorfast(x, y, z, cmap='RdBu', vmin=z_min, vmax=z_max)
plt.title('pcolorfast')
plt.colorbar()

plt.subplots_adjust(wspace=0.5, hspace=0.5)

plt.show()

Keywords: python, matplotlib, pylab, example, codex (see Search examples)