In Matplotlib, it's not too tough to make a legend (example_legend()
, below), but I think it's better style to put labels right on the curves being plotted (as in example_inline()
, below). This can be very fiddly, because I have to specify coordinates by hand, and, if I re-format the plot, I probably have to reposition the labels. Is there a way to automatically generate labels on curves in Matplotlib? Bonus points for being able to orient the text at an angle corresponding to the angle of the curve.
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def example_legend():
plt.clf()
x = np.linspace(0, 1, 101)
y1 = np.sin(x * np.pi / 2)
y2 = np.cos(x * np.pi / 2)
plt.plot(x, y1, label='sin')
plt.plot(x, y2, label='cos')
plt.legend()
def example_inline():
plt.clf()
x = np.linspace(0, 1, 101)
y1 = np.sin(x * np.pi / 2)
y2 = np.cos(x * np.pi / 2)
plt.plot(x, y1, label='sin')
plt.plot(x, y2, label='cos')
plt.text(0.08, 0.2, 'sin')
plt.text(0.9, 0.2, 'cos')
Update: User cphyc has kindly created a Github repository for the code in this answer (see here), and bundled the code into a package which may be installed using pip install matplotlib-label-lines
.
Pretty Picture:
In matplotlib
it's pretty easy to label contour plots (either automatically or by manually placing labels with mouse clicks). There does not (yet) appear to be any equivalent capability to label data series in this fashion! There may be some semantic reason for not including this feature which I am missing.
Regardless, I have written the following module which takes any allows for semi-automatic plot labelling. It requires only numpy
and a couple of functions from the standard math
library.
The default behaviour of the labelLines
function is to space the labels evenly along the x
axis (automatically placing at the correct y
-value of course). If you want you can just pass an array of the x co-ordinates of each of the labels. You can even tweak the location of one label (as shown in the bottom right plot) and space the rest evenly if you like.
In addition, the label_lines
function does not account for the lines which have not had a label assigned in the plot
command (or more accurately if the label contains '_line'
).
Keyword arguments passed to labelLines
or labelLine
are passed on to the text
function call (some keyword arguments are set if the calling code chooses not to specify).
1
and 10
annotations in the top left plot. I'm not even sure this can be avoided.y
position instead sometimes.x
-axis values are float
slabelLines
function assumes that all data series span the range specified by the axis limits. Take a look at the blue curve in the top left plot of the pretty picture. If there were only data available for the x
range 0.5
-1
then then we couldn't possibly place a label at the desired location (which is a little less than 0.2
). See this question for a particularly nasty example. Right now, the code does not intelligently identify this scenario and re-arrange the labels, however there is a reasonable workaround. The labelLines function takes the xvals
argument; a list of x
-values specified by the user instead of the default linear distribution across the width. So the user can decide which x
-values to use for the label placement of each data series.Also, I believe this is the first answer to complete the bonus objective of aligning the labels with the curve they're on. :)
label_lines.py:
from math import atan2,degrees
import numpy as np
#Label line with line2D label data
def labelLine(line,x,label=None,align=True,**kwargs):
ax = line.axes
xdata = line.get_xdata()
ydata = line.get_ydata()
if (x < xdata[0]) or (x > xdata[-1]):
print('x label location is outside data range!')
return
#Find corresponding y co-ordinate and angle of the line
ip = 1
for i in range(len(xdata)):
if x < xdata[i]:
ip = i
break
y = ydata[ip-1] + (ydata[ip]-ydata[ip-1])*(x-xdata[ip-1])/(xdata[ip]-xdata[ip-1])
if not label:
label = line.get_label()
if align:
#Compute the slope
dx = xdata[ip] - xdata[ip-1]
dy = ydata[ip] - ydata[ip-1]
ang = degrees(atan2(dy,dx))
#Transform to screen co-ordinates
pt = np.array([x,y]).reshape((1,2))
trans_angle = ax.transData.transform_angles(np.array((ang,)),pt)[0]
else:
trans_angle = 0
#Set a bunch of keyword arguments
if 'color' not in kwargs:
kwargs['color'] = line.get_color()
if ('horizontalalignment' not in kwargs) and ('ha' not in kwargs):
kwargs['ha'] = 'center'
if ('verticalalignment' not in kwargs) and ('va' not in kwargs):
kwargs['va'] = 'center'
if 'backgroundcolor' not in kwargs:
kwargs['backgroundcolor'] = ax.get_facecolor()
if 'clip_on' not in kwargs:
kwargs['clip_on'] = True
if 'zorder' not in kwargs:
kwargs['zorder'] = 2.5
ax.text(x,y,label,rotation=trans_angle,**kwargs)
def labelLines(lines,align=True,xvals=None,**kwargs):
ax = lines[0].axes
labLines = []
labels = []
#Take only the lines which have labels other than the default ones
for line in lines:
label = line.get_label()
if "_line" not in label:
labLines.append(line)
labels.append(label)
if xvals is None:
xmin,xmax = ax.get_xlim()
xvals = np.linspace(xmin,xmax,len(labLines)+2)[1:-1]
for line,x,label in zip(labLines,xvals,labels):
labelLine(line,x,label,align,**kwargs)
Test code to generate the pretty picture above:
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
from scipy.stats import loglaplace,chi2
from labellines import *
X = np.linspace(0,1,500)
A = [1,2,5,10,20]
funcs = [np.arctan,np.sin,loglaplace(4).pdf,chi2(5).pdf]
plt.subplot(221)
for a in A:
plt.plot(X,np.arctan(a*X),label=str(a))
labelLines(plt.gca().get_lines(),zorder=2.5)
plt.subplot(222)
for a in A:
plt.plot(X,np.sin(a*X),label=str(a))
labelLines(plt.gca().get_lines(),align=False,fontsize=14)
plt.subplot(223)
for a in A:
plt.plot(X,loglaplace(4).pdf(a*X),label=str(a))
xvals = [0.8,0.55,0.22,0.104,0.045]
labelLines(plt.gca().get_lines(),align=False,xvals=xvals,color='k')
plt.subplot(224)
for a in A:
plt.plot(X,chi2(5).pdf(a*X),label=str(a))
lines = plt.gca().get_lines()
l1=lines[-1]
labelLine(l1,0.6,label=r'$Re=${}'.format(l1.get_label()),ha='left',va='bottom',align = False)
labelLines(lines[:-1],align=False)
plt.show()