How do I tell Matplotlib to create a second new plot then later plot on the old one

Question

I want to plot data  then create a new figure and plot data2  and finally come back to the original plot and plot data3  kinda like this   import numpy as np import matplotlib as plt  x   arange 5  y   np exp 5  plt figure   plt plot x  y   z   np sin x  plt figure   plt plot x  z   w   np cos x  plt figure    first figure       Here s the part I need plt plot x  w    FYI How do I tell matplotlib that I am done with a plot  does something similar  but not quite  It doesn t let me get access to that original plot

User · Accepted Answer

If you find yourself doing things like this regularly it may be worth investigating the object-oriented interface to matplotlib. In your case:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

x = np.arange(5)
y = np.exp(x)
fig1, ax1 = plt.subplots()
ax1.plot(x, y)
ax1.set_title("Axis 1 title")
ax1.set_xlabel("X-label for axis 1")

z = np.sin(x)
fig2, (ax2, ax3) = plt.subplots(nrows=2, ncols=1) # two axes on figure
ax2.plot(x, z)
ax3.plot(x, -z)

w = np.cos(x)
ax1.plot(x, w) # can continue plotting on the first axis

It is a little more verbose but it's much clearer and easier to keep track of, especially with several figures each with multiple subplots.

User · Answer

However  numbering starts at 1  so   x   arange 5  y   np exp 5  plt figure 1  plt plot x  y   z   np sin x  plt figure 2  plt plot x  z   w   np cos x  plt figure 1    Here s the part I need  but numbering starts at 1  plt plot x  w    Also  if you have multiple axes on a figure  such as subplots  use the axes h  command where h is the handle of the desired axes object to focus on that axes    don t have comment privileges yet  sorry for new answer

User · Answer

One way I found after some struggling is creating a function which gets data plot matrix  file name and order as parameter to create boxplots from the given data in the ordered figure  different orders   different figures  and save it under the given file name   def plotFigure data plot file name order       fig   plt figure order  figsize  9  6       ax   fig add subplot 111      bp   ax boxplot data plot      fig savefig file name  bbox inches  tight       plt close

User · Answer

When you call figure  simply number the plot   x   arange 5  y   np exp 5  plt figure 0  plt plot x  y   z   np sin x  plt figure 1  plt plot x  z   w   np cos x  plt figure 0    Here s the part I need plt plot x  w    Edit  Note that you can number the plots however you want  here  starting from 0  but if you don t provide figure with a number at all when you create a new one  the automatic numbering will start at 1   Matlab Style  according to the docs

[python] How do I tell Matplotlib to create a second (new) plot, then later plot on the old one?

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