How to plot the body of violin-plot on top of span rectangle?
I want to do a violin-plot on top of a background color. I use axvspan to create the background. My problem is: I can't find a way to make the body of the violin-plot (the violin shape) appears on top of background color. It is only visible through the transparency of the background. Since violin-plot doesn't recognize the zorder command, is there a way to have the violin-plot on top of everything?
For example:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.figure()
plt.axvspan(-5,0,color='r' ,alpha =0.5)
plt.axvspan(0,5,color='g' ,alpha =0.5)
plt.violinplot(np.random.normal(0,1,100), vert = False)
One can see that the blue color of the violin shape appears in the transparency of the background colors (red and green). I want the blue color of the density shape to be on top of everything.
This question is similar to the Changing the color of matplotlib's violin plots though not exactly the same. I won't repeat what Nick T has written in his answer (make sure to thank him as well), but just add that PolyCollection has also set_alpha and set_zorder methods, which you could use like this:
plt.figure()
plt.axvspan(-5, 0, color='r', alpha=0.5, zorder=1)
plt.axvspan(0, 5, color='g', alpha=0.5, zorder=1)
parts = plt.violinplot(np.random.normal(0, 1, 100), vert=False)
parts['bodies'][0].set_alpha(0.8)
parts['bodies'][0].set_zorder(2)
Gives:
