Thread: [Matplotlib-users] Labeling/distinguishing lots of curves on a single plot

Hello,

I have a plot with lots of curves on it (say 30), and I would like to have
some way of distinguishing the curves from each other. Just plotting them
works well for a few curves because they come out as different colors unless
you specify otherwise, but if you do too many you start getting repeats is
there a way to have matplotlib also vary the line style that it
automatically assigns? Or perhaps someone has another way of distinguishing
lots of curves?

Best Regards,
John

Hi John,

Here is a simple way to do it.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)

colors = ('red','green','blue','yellow','orange')
linestyles = ('-','--',':')
linewidths = (0.5,2)

y = np.random.randn(100,30)
x = range(y.shape[0])
i = 0

for c in colors:
     for ls in linestyles:
         for lw in linewidths:
             ax.plot(x,y[:,i],c=c,ls=ls,lw=lw)
         i+=1
plt.show()


On 10-08-23 03:06 PM, John Salvatier wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have a plot with lots of curves on it (say 30), and I would like to 
> have some way of distinguishing the curves from each other. Just 
> plotting them works well for a few curves because they come out as 
> different colors unless you specify otherwise, but if you do too many 
> you start getting repeats is there a way to have matplotlib also vary 
> the line style that it automatically assigns? Or perhaps someone has 
> another way of distinguishing lots of curves?
>
> Best Regards,
> John
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Sell apps to millions through the Intel(R) Atom(Tm) Developer Program
> Be part of this innovative community and reach millions of netbook users
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> speed time-to-market. Join now, and jumpstart your future.
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>
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> Matplotlib-users mailing list
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> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users
>    

Thanks!

On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 12:38 PM, Aman Thakral <ama...@gm...>wrote:

>  Hi John,
>
> Here is a simple way to do it.
>
> import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
> import numpy as np
> fig = plt.figure()
> ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
>
> colors = ('red','green','blue','yellow','orange')
> linestyles = ('-','--',':')
> linewidths = (0.5,2)
>
> y = np.random.randn(100,30)
> x = range(y.shape[0])
> i = 0
>
> for c in colors:
>     for ls in linestyles:
>         for lw in linewidths:
>             ax.plot(x,y[:,i],c=c,ls=ls,lw=lw)
>         i+=1
> plt.show()
>
>
>
> On 10-08-23 03:06 PM, John Salvatier wrote:
>
> Hello,
>
> I have a plot with lots of curves on it (say 30), and I would like to have
> some way of distinguishing the curves from each other. Just plotting them
> works well for a few curves because they come out as different colors unless
> you specify otherwise, but if you do too many you start getting repeats is
> there a way to have matplotlib also vary the line style that it
> automatically assigns? Or perhaps someone has another way of distinguishing
> lots of curves?
>
> Best Regards,
> John
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Sell apps to millions through the Intel(R) Atom(Tm) Developer Program
> Be part of this innovative community and reach millions of netbook users
> worldwide. Take advantage of special opportunities to increase revenue and
> speed time-to-market. Join now, and jumpstart your future.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-atom-d2d
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Matplotlib-users mailing lis...@li...https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users
>
>
>

By the way, I found that the following generator expression made things
easy:

def styles():
    return ( {'c' : color, 'ls' : style, 'lw' : width} for color, style,
width in itertools.product(colors, linestyles, linewidths))

then you can do something like

for result, style in zip(results, styles()):
    pylab.plot(result[i], **style)

On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 1:22 PM, John Salvatier
<jsalvati@u.washington.edu>wrote:

> Thanks!
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 12:38 PM, Aman Thakral <ama...@gm...>wrote:
>
>>  Hi John,
>>
>> Here is a simple way to do it.
>>
>> import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
>> import numpy as np
>> fig = plt.figure()
>> ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
>>
>> colors = ('red','green','blue','yellow','orange')
>> linestyles = ('-','--',':')
>> linewidths = (0.5,2)
>>
>> y = np.random.randn(100,30)
>> x = range(y.shape[0])
>> i = 0
>>
>> for c in colors:
>>     for ls in linestyles:
>>         for lw in linewidths:
>>             ax.plot(x,y[:,i],c=c,ls=ls,lw=lw)
>>         i+=1
>> plt.show()
>>
>>
>>
>> On 10-08-23 03:06 PM, John Salvatier wrote:
>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have a plot with lots of curves on it (say 30), and I would like to have
>> some way of distinguishing the curves from each other. Just plotting them
>> works well for a few curves because they come out as different colors unless
>> you specify otherwise, but if you do too many you start getting repeats is
>> there a way to have matplotlib also vary the line style that it
>> automatically assigns? Or perhaps someone has another way of distinguishing
>> lots of curves?
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> John
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Sell apps to millions through the Intel(R) Atom(Tm) Developer Program
>> Be part of this innovative community and reach millions of netbook users
>> worldwide. Take advantage of special opportunities to increase revenue and
>> speed time-to-market. Join now, and jumpstart your future.
>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-atom-d2d
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Matplotlib-users mailing lis...@li...https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users
>>
>>
>>
>

And if you have mutually prime numbers of colors,
  linestyles, widths, you can automatically generate
more distinct lines than I can distinguish... If there's any
wxcuse for treating them as a series, I replot
when I know how many I have, and space the
colors through a colorbar.


&C
Away from home, checking mail rarely.

On Aug 23, 2010, at 2:11 PM, John Salvatier  
<jsalvati@u.washington.edu> wrote:

> By the way, I found that the following generator expression made  
> things easy:
>
> def styles():
>     return ( {'c' : color, 'ls' : style, 'lw' : width} for color,  
> style, width in itertools.product(colors, linestyles, linewidths))
>
> then you can do something like
>
> for result, style in zip(results, styles()):
>     pylab.plot(result[i], **style)
>
> On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 1:22 PM, John Salvatier <jsalvati@u.washington.edu 
> > wrote:
> Thanks!
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 12:38 PM, Aman Thakral  
> <ama...@gm...> wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> Here is a simple way to do it.
>
> import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
> import numpy as np
> fig = plt.figure()
> ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
>
> colors = ('red','green','blue','yellow','orange')
> linestyles = ('-','--',':')
> linewidths = (0.5,2)
>
> y = np.random.randn(100,30)
> x = range(y.shape[0])
> i = 0
>
> for c in colors:
>     for ls in linestyles:
>         for lw in linewidths:
>             ax.plot(x,y[:,i],c=c,ls=ls,lw=lw)
>         i+=1
> plt.show()
>
>
>
> On 10-08-23 03:06 PM, John Salvatier wrote:
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have a plot with lots of curves on it (say 30), and I would like  
>> to have some way of distinguishing the curves from each other. Just  
>> plotting them works well for a few curves because they come out as  
>> different colors unless you specify otherwise, but if you do too  
>> many you start getting repeats is there a way to have matplotlib  
>> also vary the line style that it automatically assigns? Or perhaps  
>> someone has another way of distinguishing lots of curves?
>>
>> Best Regards,
>> John
>>
>>
>> --- 
>> --- 
>> --- 
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Sell apps to millions through the Intel(R) Atom(Tm) Developer Program
>> Be part of this innovative community and reach millions of netbook  
>> users
>> worldwide. Take advantage of special opportunities to increase  
>> revenue and
>> speed time-to-market. Join now, and jumpstart your future.
>> http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-atom-d2d
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Matplotlib-users mailing list
>> Mat...@li...
>> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users
>>
>
>
>
> --- 
> --- 
> --- 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Sell apps to millions through the Intel(R) Atom(Tm) Developer Program
> Be part of this innovative community and reach millions of netbook  
> users
> worldwide. Take advantage of special opportunities to increase  
> revenue and
> speed time-to-market. Join now, and jumpstart your future.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-atom-d2d
> _______________________________________________
> Matplotlib-users mailing list
> Mat...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users

Here are a couple of functions you might try, with a few colors and line
styles I use:


import itertools
from pylab import *

COLORS = ['#990033', '#0000FF', '#00FF00', '#F79E00',
          '#ff00ff', '#0080FF', '#FF0000', '#2D0668',
          '#2EB42E', '#ff6633', '#8000ff', '#666633',
          '#cc0077', '#099499', '#996633', '#000000']

def new_stylecolor_iter():
    ## Use these to alternate markers, or use all the styles.
    ## Combine them into the call to 'itertools.product' and
    ## then add the appropriate kwargs to the call to 'plot'
    #markers = itertools.cycle(lines.Line2D.markers.keys())
    #styles = itertools.cycle(lines.Line2D.lineStyles.keys())
    ## alternate colors first, line styles second
    sc = itertools.product(['-', ':', '--', '-.'], COLORS)
    return sc

def line_plot_alternate():
    sc = new_stylecolor_iter()
    for i in xrange(0,40):
        style, color = sc.next()
        plot(xrange(0,20), randn(20), label=str(i), linewidth=3,
linestyle=style, color=color)
    legend()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    line_plot_alternate()
    show()




On Mon, Aug 23, 2010 at 3:06 PM, John Salvatier
<jsalvati@u.washington.edu>wrote:

> Hello,
>
> I have a plot with lots of curves on it (say 30), and I would like to have
> some way of distinguishing the curves from each other. Just plotting them
> works well for a few curves because they come out as different colors unless
> you specify otherwise, but if you do too many you start getting repeats is
> there a way to have matplotlib also vary the line style that it
> automatically assigns? Or perhaps someone has another way of distinguishing
> lots of curves?
>
> Best Regards,
> John
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Sell apps to millions through the Intel(R) Atom(Tm) Developer Program
> Be part of this innovative community and reach millions of netbook users
> worldwide. Take advantage of special opportunities to increase revenue and
> speed time-to-market. Join now, and jumpstart your future.
> http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-atom-d2d
> _______________________________________________
> Matplotlib-users mailing list
> Mat...@li...
> https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/matplotlib-users
>
>