Re: [Matplotlib-users] Controlling spacing between subplots

[Brad M. <bra...@gm...>]

Hi Ben,

Thanks. Using label_outer() does, as you say, only show labels on the edge
and that is something I wanted to do. It doesn't, however, make a common
y-axis label and a common x-axis label (instead there are now 2 of each,
instead of 4). It appears that I might be able to add a common y and x label
by brute-forcing the labels with text, along the lines of something like:



fig.text(0.5,0.04,'common xlabel',ha='center',va='center')

fig.text(0.00,0.5,'common
> ylabel',ha='center',va='center',rotation='vertical')


Now I just need to play with spacing and change precise ticklabels and I'll
be able to finish this plot up!

Thanks everyone,
Brad


On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 9:12 AM, Benjamin Root <ben...@ou...> wrote:

>
>
> On Tue, Sep 20, 2011 at 11:06 AM, Brad Malone <bra...@gm...>wrote:
>
>> Hi Jeffrey,
>>
>> Thanks the response. Sorry about the term "global axis". That was clearly
>> not the best way to say it. What I meant to say is global x axis LABEL and
>> y-axis LABEL. This can be seen in this example (
>> http://www.scipy.org/Cookbook/Matplotlib/Multiple_Subplots_with_One_Axis_Label?action=AttachFile&do=get&target=Same_ylabel_subplots.png
>> )
>>
>> although when I tried to do something similar with a 2x2 grid of plots it
>> didn't seem to be working for me. Their example works due to these lines
>> here
>>
>>   import pylab
>>>    2
>>>    3 figprops = dict(figsize=(8., 8. / 1.618), dpi=128)
>>>                        # Figure properties
>>>    4 adjustprops = dict(left=0.1, bottom=0.1, right=0.97, top=0.93,
>>> wspace=0.2 hspace=0.2)       # Subplot properties
>>>    5
>>>    6 fig = pylab.figure(**figprops)
>>>                        # New figure
>>>    7 fig.subplots_adjust(**adjustprops)
>>>                        # Tunes the subplot layout
>>>    8
>>>    9 ax = fig.add_subplot(3, 1, 1)
>>>   10 bx = fig.add_subplot(3, 1, 2, sharex=ax, sharey=ax)
>>>   11 cx = fig.add_subplot(3, 1, 3, sharex=ax, sharey=ax)
>>>   12
>>>   13 ax.plot([0,1,2], [2,3,4], 'k-')
>>>   14 bx.plot([0,1,2], [2,3,4], 'k-')
>>>   15 cx.plot([0,1,2], [2,3,4], 'k-')
>>>   16
>>>   17 pylab.setp(ax.get_xticklabels(), visible=False)
>>>   18 pylab.setp(bx.get_xticklabels(), visible=False)
>>>   19
>>>   20 bx.set_ylabel('This is a long label shared among more axes',
>>> fontsize=14)
>>>   21 cx.set_xlabel('And a shared x label', fontsize=14)
>>
>>
>>
>> specifically probably the bx/cx_set label commands coupled with the sharex
>> commands in the subplot label. But when I tried to add these things for my
>> 2x2 plot it always looked like the label was attached to one of the plots or
>> another instead of spanning the whole range.
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Brad
>>
>>
> Maybe the label_outer() function will be what you need.  Call it for each
> subplot axes, and set the labels as you would normally.  matplotlib would
> then set visible only the labels that are on the outside edge.
>
> Another option is to use the AxesGrid1 toolkit, which makes these things
> easy.  Also note that the soon-to-be released v1.1 will have a
> tight_layout() function that can help with your spacing issues.
>
> Cheers!
> Ben Root
>
>