How can I fit a gaussian curve in python?

Question

I'm given an array and when I plot it I get a gaussian shape with some noise. I want to fit the gaussian. This is what I already have but when I plot this I do not get a fitted gaussian, instead I just get a straight line. I've tried this many different ways and I just can't figure it out.

random_sample=norm.rvs(h)

parameters = norm.fit(h)

fitted_pdf = norm.pdf(f, loc = parameters[0], scale = parameters[1])

normal_pdf = norm.pdf(f)

plt.plot(f,fitted_pdf,"green")
plt.plot(f, normal_pdf, "red")
plt.plot(f,h)
plt.show()

Answer 1

You can use fit from scipy.stats.norm as follows:

import numpy as np
from scipy.stats import norm
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

data = np.random.normal(loc=5.0, scale=2.0, size=1000)
mean,std=norm.fit(data)

norm.fit tries to fit the parameters of a normal distribution based on the data. And indeed in the example above mean is approximately 5 and std is approximately 2.

In order to plot it, you can do:

plt.hist(data, bins=30, normed=True)
xmin, xmax = plt.xlim()
x = np.linspace(xmin, xmax, 100)
y = norm.pdf(x, mean, std)
plt.plot(x, y)
plt.show()

The blue boxes are the histogram of your data, and the green line is the Gaussian with the fitted parameters.