How To Create Subplots Using Plotly Express

Question

If you’re like me, you love Plotly Express, but were frustrated when you ran into the issue that figures returned by Express can’t utilize ‘make_subplots()’ since make_subplots takes in traces and not figures. With this post, I’d like to share my own solution on how I created a subplot containing two different types of figures (like below) using only Plotly Express (and plotly.subplots)

Answer 1

Solution:

import plotly.express as px
import plotly.subplots as sp
import dash_core_components as dcc

# Create figures in Express
figure1 = px.line(my_df)
figure2 = px.bar(my_df)

# For as many traces that exist per Express figure, get the traces from each plot and store them in an array.
# This is essentially breaking down the Express fig into it's traces
figure1_traces = []
figure2_traces = []
for trace in range(len(figure1["data"])):
    figure1_traces.append(figure1["data"][trace])
for trace in range(len(figure2["data"])):
    figure2_traces.append(figure2["data"][trace])

#Create a 1x2 subplot
this_figure = sp.make_subplots(rows=1, cols=2) 

# Get the Express fig broken down as traces and add the traces to the proper plot within in the subplot
for traces in figure1_traces:
    this_figure.append_trace(traces, row=1, col=1)
for traces in figure2_traces:
    this_figure.append_trace(traces, row=1, col=2)

#the subplot as shown in the above image
final_graph = dcc.Graph(figure=this_figure)

I couldn’t share an actual image of my program’s output due to the sensitivity of the data of the project I’m working on, but it looks exactly like the one in the above image. As far as I’ve tested this should work with any Express figure.

I hope this can be of use to some. Happy plotting everyone!