Change plot size in Matplotlib – Python
Prerequisite: Matplotlib
Plots are an effective way of visually representing data and summarizing it in a beautiful manner. However, if not plotted efficiently it seems appears complicated. In python’s matplotlib provides several libraries for the purpose of data representation.
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While making a plot it is important for us to optimize its size. Here are various ways to change the default plot size as per our required dimensions or resize a given plot.
Method 1: Using set_figheight() and set_figwidth()
For changing height and width of a plot set_figheight and set_figwidth are used
Python3
# importing the matplotlib libraryimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt # values on x-axisx = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]# values on y-axisy = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] # naming the x and y axisplt.xlabel('x - axis')plt.ylabel('y - axis') # plotting a line plot with it's default sizeprint("Plot in it's default size: ")plt.plot(x, y)plt.show() # plotting a line plot after changing it's width and heightf = plt.figure()f.set_figwidth(4)f.set_figheight(1) print("Plot after re-sizing: ")plt.plot(x, y)plt.show() |
Output:
Method 2: Using figsize
figsize() takes two parameters- width and height (in inches). By default the values for width and height are 6.4 and 4.8 respectively.
Syntax:
plt.figure(figsize=(x,y))
Where, x and y are width and height respectively in inches.
Python3
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt # values on x and y axisx = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]y = [6, 7, 8, 9, 10] # plot in it's default sizedisplay(plt.plot(x, y)) # changing the size of figure to 2X2plt.figure(figsize=(2, 2))display(plt.plot(x, y)) |
Output:
output screenshot
Method 3: Changing the default rcParams
We can permanently change the default size of a figure as per our needs by setting the figure.figsize.
Python3
# importing the matplotlib libraryimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt # values on x-axisx = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]# values on y-axisy = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5] # naming the x axisplt.xlabel('x - axis')# naming the y axisplt.ylabel('y - axis') # plotting a line plot with it's default sizeplt.plot(x, y)plt.show() # changing the rc parameters and plotting a line plotplt.rcParams['figure.figsize'] = [2, 2] plt.plot(x, y)plt.show() plt.scatter(x, y)plt.show() |
Output:
