Plots.jl Tips

Some tips about Plots.jl, the de-facto standard visualization library in Julia.

You don't have to precalculate¶

Plots.jl supports tracing functions.

plot(f, tmin, tmax) or plot(f, tArray)
plot(fx, fy, tmin, tmax) or plot(fx, fy, tArray)

For example, you can easily draw a parametric plot for x(t) and y(t).

# plotting (x(t), y(t))
plot(sin, (x-> sin(2x)), 0, 2π, line = 4, leg = false)

Or make a contour plot without precalculating the function values

x = 1:0.5:20
y = 1:0.5:10

g(x, y) = (3x + y ^ 2) * abs(sin(x) + cos(y))

# Precalculate the value
X = repeat(reshape(x, 1, :), length(y), 1)
Y = repeat(y, 1, length(x))
Z = map(g, X, Y)

p2 = contour(x, y, Z)

# Generate z value on-the-fly

p1 = contour(x, y, g, fill=true)
plot(p1, p2)

Subplots¶

You can combine multiple plots into one single plot with a @layout.

l = @layout [a ; b c]
p1 = plot(...)
p2 = plot(...)
p3 = plot(...)

plot(p1, p2, p3, layout = l)

Or use the sp keyword argument

plot(layout=(2,2))

plot!(randn(50), sp=1)
plot!(randn(50), sp=2)
plot!(randn(50), sp=3)
plot!(randn(50), sp=4)

See layouts for more options.

List supported styles¶

# tip: use Plots.supported_styles() or Plots.supported_markers() to see which line styles or marker shapes you can use
@show Plots.supported_styles();
@show Plots.supported_markers();

See plot attributes.

Render Images¶

# using Pkg; Pkg.add("Images")

using Images
img1 = load("dog.jpg")
plot(img1)

LaTeX texts¶

Plots.jl supports LaTeX texts in the figure.

# using Pkg; Pkg.add("LaTeXStrings")
using LaTeXStrings
str = L"\textrm{Count}"

PDF output¶

PDF uses vector graphic format and conserves details.
Set figure size e.g. size=(750,750) to determine the relative fonts sizes.
One can convert PDF to tiff images later using pdftoppm or imagemagick.

Shared Color bar¶

Source. The trick is to
- make an blank scatter plot for the colorbar.
- use a dedicated space in the layout for the colorbar.

using Plots

x1 = range(0.0, 1.0, length=51)
y1 = range(-1.0, 0.0, length=51)
z1 = sin.(4*pi.*x1)*cos.(6*pi.*reshape(y1, 1, :))

x2 = range(0.25, 1.25, length=51)
y2 = range(-1.0, 0.0, length=51)
z2 = 2.0.*sin.(4*pi.*x2)*cos.(6*pi.*reshape(y2, 1, :))

x3 = range(0.0, 1.0, length=51)
y3 = range(-1.25, -0.25, length=51)
z3 = 3.0*sin.(4*pi.*x3)*cos.(6*pi.*reshape(y3, 1, :))

x4 = range(0.25, 1.25, length=51)
y4 = range(-1.25, -0.25, length=51)
z4 = 4.0.*sin.(4*pi.*x4)*cos.(6*pi.*reshape(y4, 1, :))

clims = extrema([z1; z2; z3; z4])

p1 = contourf(x1, y1, z1, clims=clims, c=:viridis, colorbar=false)
p2 = contourf(x2, y2, z2, clims=clims, c=:viridis, colorbar=false)
p3 = contourf(x3, y3, z3, clims=clims, c=:viridis, colorbar=false)
p4 = contourf(x4, y4, z4, clims=clims, c=:viridis, colorbar=false)

h2 = scatter([0,0], [0,1], zcolor=[0,3], clims=clims,
                xlims=(1,1.1), label="", c=:viridis,
                colorbar_title="cbar", framestyle=:none)

l = @layout [grid(2, 2) a{0.035w}]

p_all = plot(p1, p2, p3, p4, h2, layout=l, link=:all)