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matplotlibaxessubplot

Can I move about the axes in a matplotilb subplot?


Once I have created a system of subplots in a figure with

        fig, ((ax1, ax2)) = plt.subplots(1, 2)

can I play around with the position of ax2, for example, by shifting it a little bit to the right or the left?

In other words, can I customize the position of an axes object in a figure after it has been created as a subplot element? If so, how could I code this?

Thanks for thinking along


Solution

  • You can use commands get_position and set_position like in this example:

    import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
    
    fig, ((ax1, ax2)) = plt.subplots(1, 2)
    box = ax1.get_position()
    box.x0 = box.x0 + 0.05
    box.x1 = box.x1 + 0.05
    ax1.set_position(box)
    plt.show()
    

    which results in this:

    Shifting matplotlib subplot

    You'll notice I've used attributes x0 and x1 (first and last X coordinate of the box) to shift the plot in 0.05 in that axis. The logic applies to y also.

    In fact should the shift be to big and the boxes will overlap (like in this image with a shift of 0.2).

    big shift with overlapping plots in matplotlib