How do I set matplotlib plot to "no fill"?

Question

I'd like to superimpose one plot over another (they are polygons, really in some lat/lon space, using geopandas, but the plot is simply derived from matplotlib)

I have:

figZ, axZ = plt.subplots(1, figsize=(11,8.5))
Sfig = X.plot(ax=axZ, color='white', edgecolor='black', lw=0.7)
Y.plot(ax=axZ, color='white', edgecolor='black', lw=0.7, alpha=0.3)

How do I set Sfig's color to "no-fill" instead of white? The way it is now it "blurs" my Sfig image (X.plot) by the alpha of the Y.plot one. How do I set "color" to actually transparent?

Dervin Thunk · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-16 16:11:12Z

57

I don't expect upvotes, but this is what I found as solution. I'll vote up better ones if they exist:

Sfig = X.plot(ax=axZ, facecolor="none", 
              edgecolor='black', lw=0.7)

answered Dec 16, 2017 at 16:11

Dervin Thunk

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3 Comments

Paul H Over a year ago

"none" is exactly how you specify no color in matplotlib

Bruno Vermeulen Over a year ago

I noticed that in windows, I can do facecolor='', but on Linux I have to enter as by the answer facecolor='none'

Iván Over a year ago

for latest matplotlib the argument name is markerfacecolor

Michael Hall · Accepted Answer · 2023-05-07 23:45:16Z

1

I know this post doesn't mention seaborn, but I suspect a lot of people end up here asking this question for seaborn also (as I did).

The top answer almost works for seaborn boxplots, you just need to pass it as boxprops.

sns.boxplot(data=data, x=x, y=y, hue=hue, boxprops=dict(facecolor="none"))

NOTE: I emphasise that this solution only works for boxplots. There is a more general was of doing this with the new object API in seaborn.

edited May 7, 2023 at 23:45

answered Feb 5, 2022 at 6:48

Michael Hall

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2 Comments

Mr. T Over a year ago

This is not generally true for seaborn and depends on the type of plot you initiate. Depending on the underlying plot structure, you can often define edgecolor and facecolor but in some types, seaborn overrules the user setting.

Michael Hall Over a year ago

Ah yes. I just went down a rabbit hole of following github issues around discussing general solutions. I will emphasise that my solution is only relevant to boxplots.

natanael quintino · Accepted Answer · 2022-09-15 12:58:37Z

0

To disable facecolor just set with the value (0, 0, 0, 0), i.e.,

Sfig = set_facecolor((0,0,0,0))

answered Sep 15, 2022 at 12:58

natanael quintino

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