matplotlib Plotting Cookbook

Adding lines

When you have a very specific need in mind, the figures offered by matplotlib might not be of much help to you. All the graphics made by matplotlib consist of basic primitives. When demonstrating how to change the color of a boxplot, we mention that most matplotlib plotting functions return collections of lines and shapes. Now, we are going to demonstrate how to directly use a fundamental primitive: lines.

How to do it...

The following script will show a simple but aesthetic pattern made of independent lines:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

N = 16
for i in range(N):
  plt.gca().add_line(plt.Line2D((0, i), (N - i, 0), color = '.75'))

plt.grid(True)
plt.axis('scaled')
plt.show()

The preceding code gives the following output:

How it works... ...