hexbin density plots in matplotlib?

Community matplotlib-users
1

hi all,

is there a way to make density plots using hexagonal bins in matplotlib? what i mean is something like the hexbin package for R, where you can make density plots where hexagons are plotted in size proportion to the number of points in that hexagonal bin… see http://www.bioconductor.org/packages/2.3/bioc/html/hexbin.html

alternatively, the hexgons can be of the same size but shaded in proportion to their counts. i am more interested in the case where the hexagons are sized differently, but in any case, both hexagonal density plots come with an associated legend on the side that shows the bins:

http://bm2.genes.nig.ac.jp/RGM2/R_current/library/hexbin/man/gplot.hexbin.html

is there a way to do this in matplotlib? thanks for your help.

2

Not to be rude, but is there any reason you didn’t look for pyplot.hexbin before sending the email? :slight_smile:

Ryan

···

On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 9:48 AM, per freem <perfreem@…287…> wrote:

hi all,

is there a way to make density plots using hexagonal bins in matplotlib? what i mean is something like the hexbin package for R, where you can make density plots where hexagons are plotted in size proportion to the number of points in that hexagonal bin… see http://www.bioconductor.org/packages/2.3/bioc/html/hexbin.html

alternatively, the hexgons can be of the same size but shaded in proportion to their counts. i am more interested in the case where the hexagons are sized differently, but in any case, both hexagonal density plots come with an associated legend on the side that shows the bins:

http://bm2.genes.nig.ac.jp/RGM2/R_current/library/hexbin/man/gplot.hexbin.html

is there a way to do this in matplotlib? thanks for your help.

–
Ryan May
Graduate Research Assistant
School of Meteorology

University of Oklahoma

3

Continuing in the non-rude vein :slight_smile: See these examples::

  http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/examples/pylab_examples/hexbin_demo.html
  http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/examples/pylab_examples/hexbin_demo2.html

and this doc string::

  http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/api/pyplot_api.html#matplotlib.pyplot.hexbin

Have fun!
JDH

···

On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Ryan May<rmay31@...287...> wrote:

is there a way to do this in matplotlib? thanks for your help.

Not to be rude, but is there any reason you didn't look for pyplot.hexbin
before sending the email? :slight_smile:

4

hi all,

thank you for your replies. my original message wasn't detailed
enough. what i am looking for is a hexbin plot, where points are
binned into hexagons and then hexagons are plotted in size
proportional to the points in the bin. i think the links provided are
very relevant for this,

but one thing i cannot information on is: how can i make an automatic
legend for such plots, where hex bins of varying sizes are shown to
tell the viewer how many points fall into each bin size?

to make this clear, i am looking for something like this:

http://r-spatial.sourceforge.net/gallery/fig/fig12.png

where instead of bubbles, we have hexbins, and the legend on the right
gives a mapping from differently sized hex bins to the number of
points in that hexbin.

any help on this would be greatly appreciated. thanks.

···

On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 12:36 PM, John Hunter<jdh2358@...287...> wrote:

On Wed, Aug 5, 2009 at 10:25 AM, Ryan May<rmay31@...287...> wrote:

is there a way to do this in matplotlib? thanks for your help.

Not to be rude, but is there any reason you didn't look for pyplot.hexbin
before sending the email? :slight_smile:

Continuing in the non-rude vein :slight_smile: See these examples::

http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/examples/pylab_examples/hexbin_demo.html
http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/examples/pylab_examples/hexbin_demo2.html

and this doc string::

http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/api/pyplot_api.html#matplotlib.pyplot.hexbin

Have fun!
JDH