matplotlib.pyplot.pcolor

matplotlib.pyplot.pcolor(*args, shading=None, alpha=None, norm=None, cmap=None, vmin=None, vmax=None, colorizer=None, data=None, **kwargs)

Create a pseudocolor plot with a non-regular rectangular grid.

Call signature:

pcolor([X, Y,] C, /, **kwargs)

X and Y can be used to specify the corners of the quadrilaterals.

The arguments X, Y, C are positional-only.

Hint

pcolor() can be very slow for large arrays. In most cases you should use the similar but much faster pcolormesh instead. See Differences between pcolor() and pcolormesh() for a discussion of the differences.

Parameters:

C2D array-like

The color-mapped values. Color-mapping is controlled by cmap, norm, vmin, and vmax.

X, Yarray-like, optional

The coordinates of the corners of quadrilaterals of a pcolormesh:

(X[i+1, j], Y[i+1, j])       (X[i+1, j+1], Y[i+1, j+1])
                      ●╶───╴●
                      │     │
                      ●╶───╴●
    (X[i, j], Y[i, j])       (X[i, j+1], Y[i, j+1])

Note that the column index corresponds to the x-coordinate, and the row index corresponds to y. For details, see the Notes section below.

If shading='flat' the dimensions of X and Y should be one greater than those of C, and the quadrilateral is colored due to the value at C[i, j]. If X, Y and C have equal dimensions, a warning will be raised and the last row and column of C will be ignored.

If shading='nearest', the dimensions of X and Y should be the same as those of C (if not, a ValueError will be raised). The color C[i, j] will be centered on (X[i, j], Y[i, j]).

If X and/or Y are 1-D arrays or column vectors they will be expanded as needed into the appropriate 2D arrays, making a rectangular grid.

shading{'flat', 'nearest', 'auto'}, default: rcParams["pcolor.shading"] (default: 'auto')

The fill style for the quadrilateral. Possible values:

• 'flat': A solid color is used for each quad. The color of the quad (i, j), (i+1, j), (i, j+1), (i+1, j+1) is given by C[i, j]. The dimensions of X and Y should be one greater than those of C; if they are the same as C, then a deprecation warning is raised, and the last row and column of C are dropped.

• 'nearest': Each grid point will have a color centered on it, extending halfway between the adjacent grid centers. The dimensions of X and Y must be the same as C.

• 'auto': Choose 'flat' if dimensions of X and Y are one larger than C. Choose 'nearest' if dimensions are the same.

See pcolormesh grids and shading for more description.

cmapstr or Colormap, default: rcParams["image.cmap"] (default: 'viridis')

The Colormap instance or registered colormap name used to map scalar data to colors.

normstr or Normalize, optional

The normalization method used to scale scalar data to the [0, 1] range before mapping to colors using cmap. By default, a linear scaling is used, mapping the lowest value to 0 and the highest to 1.

If given, this can be one of the following:

• An instance of Normalize or one of its subclasses (see Colormap normalization).

• A scale name, i.e. one of "linear", "log", "symlog", "logit", etc. For a list of available scales, call matplotlib.scale.get_scale_names(). In that case, a suitable Normalize subclass is dynamically generated and instantiated.

vmin, vmaxfloat, optional

When using scalar data and no explicit norm, vmin and vmax define the data range that the colormap covers. By default, the colormap covers the complete value range of the supplied data. It is an error to use vmin/vmax when a norm instance is given (but using a str norm name together with vmin/vmax is acceptable).

colorizerColorizer or None, default: None

The Colorizer object used to map color to data. If None, a Colorizer object is created from a norm and cmap.

edgecolors{'none', None, 'face', color, color sequence}, optional

The color of the edges. Defaults to 'none'. Possible values:

• 'none' or '': No edge.

• None: rcParams["patch.edgecolor"] (default: 'black') will be used. Note that currently rcParams["patch.force_edgecolor"] (default: False) has to be True for this to work.

• 'face': Use the adjacent face color.

• A color or sequence of colors will set the edge color.

The singular form edgecolor works as an alias.

alphafloat, default: None

The alpha blending value of the face color, between 0 (transparent) and 1 (opaque). Note: The edgecolor is currently not affected by this.

snapbool, default: False

Whether to snap the mesh to pixel boundaries.

Returns:

matplotlib.collections.PolyQuadMesh

Other Parameters:

antialiasedsbool, default: False

The default antialiaseds is False if the default edgecolors="none" is used. This eliminates artificial lines at patch boundaries, and works regardless of the value of alpha. If edgecolors is not "none", then the default antialiaseds is taken from rcParams["patch.antialiased"] (default: True). Stroking the edges may be preferred if alpha is 1, but will cause artifacts otherwise.

dataindexable object, optional

If given, all parameters also accept a string s, which is interpreted as data[s] if s is a key in data.

**kwargs

Additionally, the following arguments are allowed. They are passed along to the PolyQuadMesh constructor:

Property	Description
agg_filter	a filter function, which takes a (m, n, 3) float array and a dpi value, and returns a (m, n, 3) array and two offsets from the bottom left corner of the image
alpha	array-like or float or None
animated	bool
antialiased or aa or antialiaseds	bool or list of bools
array	array-like or None
capstyle	CapStyle or {'butt', 'projecting', 'round'}
clim	(vmin: float, vmax: float)
clip_box	BboxBase or None
clip_on	bool
clip_path	Patch or (Path, Transform) or None
cmap	Colormap or str or None
color	color or list of RGBA tuples
edgecolor or ec or edgecolors	color or list of color or 'face'
facecolor or facecolors or fc	color or list of color
figure	Figure or SubFigure
gid	str
hatch	{'/', '\', '|', '-', '+', 'x', 'o', 'O', '.', '*'}
hatch_linewidth	unknown
in_layout	bool
joinstyle	JoinStyle or {'miter', 'round', 'bevel'}
label	object
linestyle or dashes or linestyles or ls	str or tuple or list thereof
linewidth or linewidths or lw	float or list of floats
mouseover	bool
norm	Normalize or str or None
offset_transform or transOffset	Transform
offsets	(N, 2) or (2,) array-like
path_effects	list of AbstractPathEffect
paths	list of array-like
picker	None or bool or float or callable
pickradius	float
rasterized	bool
sizes	numpy.ndarray or None
sketch_params	(scale: float, length: float, randomness: float)
snap	bool or None
transform	Transform
url	str
urls	list of str or None
verts	list of array-like
verts_and_codes	unknown
visible	bool
zorder	float

See also

pcolormesh

for an explanation of the differences between pcolor and pcolormesh.

imshow

If X and Y are each equidistant, imshow can be a faster alternative.

Notes

Note

This is the pyplot wrapper for axes.Axes.pcolor.

Masked arrays

X, Y and C may be masked arrays. If either C[i, j], or one of the vertices surrounding C[i, j] (X or Y at [i, j], [i+1, j], [i, j+1], [i+1, j+1]) is masked, nothing is plotted.

Grid orientation

The grid orientation follows the standard matrix convention: An array C with shape (nrows, ncolumns) is plotted with the column number as X and the row number as Y.

Examples using matplotlib.pyplot.pcolor

pcolor images

pcolor images

Controlling view limits using margins and sticky_edges

Controlling view limits using margins and sticky_edges