increasing width of figure in matplotlib according to number of x values

Question

I was trying to draw a barchart using matplotlib.The number of items to be plotted can vary . I cannot set the figure.set_size_inches(w,h) or set_figwidth(w) with constants(like 6.,8. or 8.,12. etc),since I cannot tell in advance what the value of w or h should be.I want the width of figure to increase as the number of items to be plotted increases.Can someone tell me how I can do this?

import pylab

def create_barchart(map):
    xvaluenames = map.keys()
    xvaluenames.sort()
    yvalues = map.values()
    max_yvalue = get_max_yvalue(yvalues)
    xdata = range(len(xvaluenames))
    ydata = [map[x] for x in xvaluenames]
    splitxdata = [x.split('-',1) for x in xvaluenames]
    xlabels = [x[0] for x in splitxdata]
    figure = pylab.figure()
    ax = figure.add_subplot(1,1,1)
    figsize = figure.get_size_inches()
    print 'figure size1=',figsize,'width=',figsize[0],'height=',figsize[1]
    barwidth = .25
    ystep =  max_yvalue/5
    pylab.grid(True)
    if xdata and ydata:
        ax.bar(xdata, ydata, width=barwidth,align='center',color='orange')
        ax.set_xlabel('xvalues',color='green')
        ax.set_ylabel('yvalues',color='green')
        ax.set_xticks(xdata)
        ax.set_xlim([min(xdata) - 0.5, max(xdata) + 0.5])
        ax.set_xticklabels(xlabels)
        ax.set_yticks(range(0,max_yvalue+ystep,ystep))
        ax.set_ylim(0,max(ydata)+ystep)
    figure.autofmt_xdate(rotation=30)
    figure.savefig('mybarplot',format="png")
    print 'figure size2=',figure.get_size_inches()
    pylab.show()

def get_max_yvalue(yvals):
    return max(yvals) if yvals else 0

if I try with a small set of items,I get

if __name__=='__main__':
    datamap = dict(mark=39,jim=40, simon=20,dan=33)    
    print datamap
    create_barchart(datamap)

plot of small set

but if I use a larger set

datamap = dict(mark=39,jim=40, simon=20,dan=33) 
additional_values= dict(jon=34,ray=23,bert=45,kevin=35,ned=31,bran=11,tywin=56,tyrion=30,jaime=36,griffin=25,viserys=25)
datamap.update(additional_values)  
create_barchart(datamap)

plot of a larger set

This looks awful, I am wondering if there is a way to increase the width of figure,according to the number of items to be plotted,keeping the width of bars in both cases same

len(map) should give you the number of bars and you know this going into the function. Why can't you set the width of the chart based on this value? Seems something is missing in your example. Is it supposed to be interactive? — Paul
– Paul, Commented Aug 18, 2011 at 14:57
no,it is not supposed to be interactive..should have figured out the scaling of width based on number of items..that was a case of my braincells going to sleep:-) — markjason72
– markjason72, Commented Aug 18, 2011 at 15:17

Yann · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-18 15:04:37Z

5

You can set the width when you initialize the figure:

# default scale is 1 in your original case, scales with other cases:
widthscale = len(yvalues)/4 
figsize = (8*widthscale,6) # fig size in inches (width,height)
figure = pylab.figure(figsize = figsize) # set the figsize

Replace the figure = pylab.figure() line with the above three lines and you get what your asking for.

answered Aug 18, 2011 at 15:04

Yann

35.8k9 gold badges84 silver badges71 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

increasing width of figure in matplotlib according to number of x values

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

1 Answer 1

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related