How to draw vertical lines on a given plot in matplotlib

python matplotlib
Francis picture Francis · Jul 28, 2014 · Viewed 423.6k times · Source

Given a plot of signal in time representation, how to draw lines marking corresponding time index?

Specifically, given a signal plot with time index ranging from 0 to 2.6(s), I want to draw vertical red lines indicating corresponding time index for the list [0.22058956, 0.33088437, 2.20589566], how can I do it?

Answer

Gabriel picture Gabriel · Jul 28, 2014

The standard way to add vertical lines that will cover your entire plot window without you having to specify their actual height is plt.axvline

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.axvline(x=0.22058956)
plt.axvline(x=0.33088437)
plt.axvline(x=2.20589566)

OR

xcoords = [0.22058956, 0.33088437, 2.20589566]
for xc in xcoords:
    plt.axvline(x=xc)

You can use many of the keywords available for other plot commands (e.g. color, linestyle, linewidth ...). You can pass in keyword arguments ymin and ymax if you like in axes corrdinates (e.g. ymin=0.25, ymax=0.75 will cover the middle half of the plot). There are corresponding functions for horizontal lines (axhline) and rectangles (axvspan).

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