Customizing Figure Layouts Using GridSpec and Other Functions

How to create grid-shaped combinations of axes.

subplots()

GridSpec

SubplotSpec

subplot2grid()

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import matplotlib
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.gridspec as gridspec

Basic Quickstart Guide

These first two examples show how to create a basic 2-by-2 grid using
both subplots() and gridspec.

Using subplots() is quite simple.
It returns a Figure instance and an array of
Axes objects.

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fig1, f1_axes = plt.subplots(ncols=2, nrows=2, constrained_layout=True)

sphx_glr_gridspec_001

For a simple use case such as this, gridspec is
perhaps overly verbose.
You have to create the figure and GridSpec
instance separately, then pass elements of gridspec instance to the
add_subplot() method to create the axes
objects.
The elements of the gridspec are accessed in generally the same manner as
numpy arrays.

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fig2 = plt.figure(constrained_layout=True)
spec2 = gridspec.GridSpec(ncols=2, nrows=2, figure=fig2)
f2_ax1 = fig2.add_subplot(spec2[0, 0])
f2_ax2 = fig2.add_subplot(spec2[0, 1])
f2_ax3 = fig2.add_subplot(spec2[1, 0])
f2_ax4 = fig2.add_subplot(spec2[1, 1])

sphx_glr_gridspec_002

The power of gridspec comes in being able to create subplots that span
rows and columns. Note the
Numpy slice
syntax for selecting the part of the gridspec each subplot will occupy.

Note that we have also used the convenience method Figure.add_gridspec
instead of gridspec.GridSpec, potentially saving the user an import,
and keeping the namespace cleaner.

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fig3 = plt.figure(constrained_layout=True)
gs = fig3.add_gridspec(3, 3)
f3_ax1 = fig3.add_subplot(gs[0, :])
f3_ax1.set_title('gs[0, :]')
f3_ax2 = fig3.add_subplot(gs[1, :-1])
f3_ax2.set_title('gs[1, :-1]')
f3_ax3 = fig3.add_subplot(gs[1:, -1])
f3_ax3.set_title('gs[1:, -1]')
f3_ax4 = fig3.add_subplot(gs[-1, 0])
f3_ax4.set_title('gs[-1, 0]')
f3_ax5 = fig3.add_subplot(gs[-1, -2])
f3_ax5.set_title('gs[-1, -2]')

sphx_glr_gridspec_003

gridspec is also indispensable for creating subplots
of different widths via a couple of methods.

The method shown here is similar to the one above and initializes a
uniform grid specification,
and then uses numpy indexing and slices to allocate multiple
“cells” for a given subplot.

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fig4 = plt.figure(constrained_layout=True)
spec4 = fig4.add_gridspec(ncols=2, nrows=2)
anno_opts = dict(xy=(0.5, 0.5), xycoords='axes fraction',
                 va='center', ha='center')

f4_ax1 = fig4.add_subplot(spec4[0, 0])
f4_ax1.annotate('GridSpec[0, 0]', **anno_opts)
fig4.add_subplot(spec4[0, 1]).annotate('GridSpec[0, 1:]', **anno_opts)
fig4.add_subplot(spec4[1, 0]).annotate('GridSpec[1:, 0]', **anno_opts)
fig4.add_subplot(spec4[1, 1]).annotate('GridSpec[1:, 1:]', **anno_opts)

sphx_glr_gridspec_004

Another option is to use the width_ratios and height_ratios
parameters. These keyword arguments are lists of numbers.
Note that absolute values are meaningless, only their relative ratios
matter. That means that width_ratios=[2, 4, 8] is equivalent to
width_ratios=[1, 2, 4] within equally wide figures.
For the sake of demonstration, we’ll blindly create the axes within
for loops since we won’t need them later.

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fig5 = plt.figure(constrained_layout=True)
widths = [2, 3, 1.5]
heights = [1, 3, 2]
spec5 = fig5.add_gridspec(ncols=3, nrows=3, width_ratios=widths,
                          height_ratios=heights)
for row in range(3):
    for col in range(3):
        ax = fig5.add_subplot(spec5[row, col])
        label = 'Width: {}\nHeight: {}'.format(widths[col], heights[row])
        ax.annotate(label, (0.1, 0.5), xycoords='axes fraction', va='center')

sphx_glr_gridspec_005

Learning to use width_ratios and height_ratios is particularly
useful since the top-level function subplots()
accepts them within the gridspec_kw parameter.
For that matter, any parameter accepted by
GridSpec can be passed to
subplots() via the gridspec_kw parameter.
This example recreates the previous figure without directly using a
gridspec instance.

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gs_kw = dict(width_ratios=widths, height_ratios=heights)
fig6, f6_axes = plt.subplots(ncols=3, nrows=3, constrained_layout=True,
        gridspec_kw=gs_kw)
for r, row in enumerate(f6_axes):
    for c, ax in enumerate(row):
        label = 'Width: {}\nHeight: {}'.format(widths[c], heights[r])
        ax.annotate(label, (0.1, 0.5), xycoords='axes fraction', va='center')

sphx_glr_gridspec_006

The subplots and gridspec methods can be combined since it is
sometimes more convenient to make most of the subplots using subplots
and then remove some and combine them. Here we create a layout with
the bottom two axes in the last column combined.

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fig7, f7_axs = plt.subplots(ncols=3, nrows=3)
gs = f7_axs[1, 2].get_gridspec()
# remove the underlying axes
for ax in f7_axs[1:, -1]:
    ax.remove()
axbig = fig7.add_subplot(gs[1:, -1])
axbig.annotate('Big Axes \nGridSpec[1:, -1]', (0.1, 0.5),
               xycoords='axes fraction', va='center')

fig7.tight_layout()

sphx_glr_gridspec_007

Fine Adjustments to a Gridspec Layout

When a GridSpec is explicitly used, you can adjust the layout
parameters of subplots that are created from the GridSpec. Note this
option is not compatible with constrained_layout or
Figure.tight_layout which both adjust subplot sizes to fill the
figure.

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fig8 = plt.figure(constrained_layout=False)
gs1 = fig8.add_gridspec(nrows=3, ncols=3, left=0.05, right=0.48, wspace=0.05)
f8_ax1 = fig8.add_subplot(gs1[:-1, :])
f8_ax2 = fig8.add_subplot(gs1[-1, :-1])
f8_ax3 = fig8.add_subplot(gs1[-1, -1])

sphx_glr_gridspec_008

This is similar to subplots_adjust(), but it only
affects the subplots that are created from the given GridSpec.

For example, compare the left and right sides of this figure:

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fig9 = plt.figure(constrained_layout=False)
gs1 = fig9.add_gridspec(nrows=3, ncols=3, left=0.05, right=0.48,
                        wspace=0.05)
f9_ax1 = fig9.add_subplot(gs1[:-1, :])
f9_ax2 = fig9.add_subplot(gs1[-1, :-1])
f9_ax3 = fig9.add_subplot(gs1[-1, -1])

gs2 = fig9.add_gridspec(nrows=3, ncols=3, left=0.55, right=0.98,
                        hspace=0.05)
f9_ax4 = fig9.add_subplot(gs2[:, :-1])
f9_ax5 = fig9.add_subplot(gs2[:-1, -1])
f9_ax6 = fig9.add_subplot(gs2[-1, -1])

sphx_glr_gridspec_009

GridSpec using SubplotSpec

You can create GridSpec from the SubplotSpec,
in which case its layout parameters are set to that of the location of
the given SubplotSpec.

Note this is also available from the more verbose
gridspec.GridSpecFromSubplotSpec.

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fig10 = plt.figure(constrained_layout=True)
gs0 = fig10.add_gridspec(1, 2)

gs00 = gs0[0].subgridspec(2, 3)
gs01 = gs0[1].subgridspec(3, 2)

for a in range(2):
    for b in range(3):
        fig10.add_subplot(gs00[a, b])
        fig10.add_subplot(gs01[b, a])

sphx_glr_gridspec_010

A Complex Nested GridSpec using SubplotSpec

Here’s a more sophisticated example of nested GridSpec where we put
a box around each cell of the outer 4x4 grid, by hiding appropriate
spines in each of the inner 3x3 grids.

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import numpy as np
from itertools import product


def squiggle_xy(a, b, c, d, i=np.arange(0.0, 2*np.pi, 0.05)):
    return np.sin(i*a)*np.cos(i*b), np.sin(i*c)*np.cos(i*d)


fig11 = plt.figure(figsize=(8, 8), constrained_layout=False)

# gridspec inside gridspec
outer_grid = fig11.add_gridspec(4, 4, wspace=0.0, hspace=0.0)

for i in range(16):
    inner_grid = outer_grid[i].subgridspec(3, 3, wspace=0.0, hspace=0.0)
    a, b = int(i/4)+1, i % 4+1
    for j, (c, d) in enumerate(product(range(1, 4), repeat=2)):
        ax = fig11.add_subplot(inner_grid[j])
        ax.plot(*squiggle_xy(a, b, c, d))
        ax.set_xticks([])
        ax.set_yticks([])
        fig11.add_subplot(ax)

all_axes = fig11.get_axes()

# show only the outside spines
for ax in all_axes:
    for sp in ax.spines.values():
        sp.set_visible(False)
    if ax.is_first_row():
        ax.spines['top'].set_visible(True)
    if ax.is_last_row():
        ax.spines['bottom'].set_visible(True)
    if ax.is_first_col():
        ax.spines['left'].set_visible(True)
    if ax.is_last_col():
        ax.spines['right'].set_visible(True)

plt.show()

sphx_glr_gridspec_011

References

The usage of the following functions and methods is shown in this example:

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matplotlib.pyplot.subplots
matplotlib.figure.Figure.add_gridspec
matplotlib.figure.Figure.add_subplot
matplotlib.gridspec.GridSpec
matplotlib.gridspec.SubplotSpec.subgridspec
matplotlib.gridspec.GridSpecFromSubplotSpec

Total running time of the script: ( 0 minutes 8.732 seconds)

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