如何将 AxesSubplot 转换为 Axes 对象以使 subplots_adjust 仅适用于未转换的 AxesSubplot

Question

I have created two lists of AxesSubplot , and I only want to change the bounding box of two set of AxesSubplot using subplots_adjust() seperately. I found subplots_adjust() does not work on Axes object, which means if I convert one list of AxesSubplot objects to Axes , then subplots_adjust() will work fine for the rest of AxesSubplot objects. Pls see code below.

fig, axes1 = plt.subplots(2, 2, figsize=(7.2, 7.2))
fig.subplots_adjust(0.2, 0.2 , 0.5, 0.5) # adjust axes1
axes2 = fig.subplots(3, 3)
# only want to adjust axes2, but axes1 affected. 
# If elements in axes1 change from `AxesSubplot` to `Axes`, 
# then it will be fine, fig.subplots_adjust() only works on `AxesSubplot`.
fig.subplots_adjust(0.6, 0.6 , 0.8, 0.8) 

I know I can get bounds of AxesSubplot and create Axes from that, but I am not sure if there are other ways to do it.

If there exist other ways to achieve such flexibility, pls also suggest:)

Answer 1

This is possible using two different instances of GridSpec .

Each GridSpec can have its own bounding left, right, bottom, top defined.

In this example, we create two GridSpec 's with different bounds, then create all the subplots for each GridSpec using the .subplots function.

Note that I coloured the faces of the subplots on the second using the subplots_kw option, just to make it clear which is which.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.gridspec as gridspec

fig = plt.figure(figsize=(7.2, 7.2))

gs1 = fig.add_gridspec(nrows=2, ncols=2, left=0.1, right=0.6, bottom=0.55, top=0.95)
gs2 = fig.add_gridspec(nrows=3, ncols=3, left=0.4, right=0.9, bottom=0.05, top=0.45)

gs1.subplots()
gs2.subplots(subplot_kw={'facecolor': 'red'})

plt.show()