Search code examples
pythonmatplotlibplotheatmapbinning

Matplotlib: How to increase size of bin in Heatmap (hexbin)?

Matplotlib: How can I set the size of the bins created using hexbin? The problem i have is that the bins are just much too small so that the graphic looks somehow weird.

Solution

  • Using pylab_examples example code: hexbin_demo.py, you can easily play around with all of the optional arguments to see how they affect the same dataset. Here is what gridsize does:

    enter image description here

    I just copy and pasted the code from the demo (including the data creation part) then made subplots with different values for the same parameter like this

    plt.subplots_adjust(hspace=0.5)
plt.subplot(132)
plt.hexbin(x, y, cmap=plt.cm.YlOrRd_r)
plt.axis([xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax])
plt.title("Gridsize 100 (default)")
cb = plt.colorbar()
cb.set_label('counts')

plt.subplot(133)
plt.hexbin(x, y, cmap=plt.cm.YlOrRd_r, gridsize = 200)
plt.axis([xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax])
plt.title("Gridsize 200")
cb = plt.colorbar()
cb.set_label('counts')

plt.subplot(131)
plt.hexbin(x, y, cmap=plt.cm.YlOrRd_r, gridsize = 10)
plt.axis([xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax])
plt.title("Gridsize 10")
cb = plt.colorbar()
cb.set_label('counts')

plt.show()
plt.close()