Matplotlib: get and set axes position

Question

In matlab, it's straightforward to get and set the position of an existing axes on the figure:

  pos = get(gca(), 'position')
  set(gca(), 'position', pos)

How do I do this in Matplotlib?

I need this for two related reasons:

These are the specific problems I'm trying to solve:

• I have a column of subplots where some have colorbars and some don't, and they aren't the same width i.e. the X axises don't align. The colorbar steals space from the axes. This also happens in matlab, and there I'd use the above trick to make all the axes equally wide by copying the width from an axes with a colorbar to those without.

• add space between individual subplots by shrinkin an axes. The adjust_subplots() function adjusts all subplots the same.

Solution

Setting axes position is similar in Matplotlib. You can use the get_position and set_position methods of the axes.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

ax = plt.subplot(111)
pos1 = ax.get_position() # get the original position 
pos2 = [pos1.x0 + 0.3, pos1.y0 + 0.3,  pos1.width / 2.0, pos1.height / 2.0] 
ax.set_position(pos2) # set a new position

You might also want to take a look at GridSpec if you haven't already.

Comments

[DaniPaniz]

I tried and tried again but if I play with set_position I only move the graph in my window.. how can I plot the X axes at y = 0 or y = -1 or in other positions?

[Page David]

@DaniPaniz Try get axis first with ax = plt.gca(), then set axis with ax.spines[‘left’].set_position((‘data’, 0)) then y axis is at x = 0. Also, you can change left to bottom to set x axis at y = 0.