Is there an easy way to draw a zigzag or wavy line in matplotlib?
I'm aware of the different line styles ( http://matplotlib.org/examples/lines_bars_and_markers/line_styles_reference.html ), and I'm of course aware that instead of plotting
plt.figure(); plt.plot(n.linspace(0.7,1.42,100),[0.7]*100)
I could plot
plt.figure(); plt.plot(n.linspace(0.7,1.42,100),[0.69,0.71]*50)
for a zigzag-line, but I was wondering whether there was a more straightforward way?
Yes there is, but it comes with a little bit of fallout. The easiest way is to use the xkcd mode in matplotlib.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.xkcd()
plt.figure()
plt.plot(np.linspace(0.7,1.42,100),[0.7]*100)
plt.show()
Which gives you the following:
If you take a look at the code used to achieve this you will find that the xkcd
function makes some changes to the rcParams
dictionary. Most notably the entry rcParams['path.sketch'] = (scale, length, randomness)
which is a path effect that is able to simulate a hand drawn look. The default parameters used by xkcd style are:
# explanation from the docstring of the xkcd function
scale = 1 # amplitude of the wiggle
length = 100 # length of the wiggle along the line
randomness = 2 # scale factor for shrinking and expanding the length
You can change the entries in the rcParams
dictionary if you import it from the matplotlib
package. In the following example I increased the randomness
value from 2
to 100
:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import rcParams
rcParams['path.sketch'] = (1, 100, 100)
plt.plot(np.linspace(0.7,1.42,100),[0.7]*100)
plt.show()
Which will result in the following plot:
As you can see, more jiggling and the font used for the ticks is still 'normal'. However, the style is also used to draw the axes and so far I have not found a way around that. Two workarounds could be:
Option 1 can be achieved like this:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import rcParams
rcParams['path.sketch'] = (10, 10, 100)
fig = plt.plot(np.linspace(0.7,1.42,100),[0.7]*100)
for pos, spine in fig[0].axes.spines.items():
spine.set_visible(False)
plt.show()
Which, in my opinion look quite ok. borders around plots are highly overrated anyways.
To get an evenly waved line, set the randomness parameter to 1 and pick small values for amplitude and length:
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import rcParams
rcParams['path.sketch'] = (3, 10, 1)
fig = plt.plot(np.linspace(0.7,1.42,100),[0.7]*100)
for pos, spine in fig[0].axes.spines.items():
spine.set_visible(False)
plt.show()
rcParams['path.sketch'] = (100, 1, 100)
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