Matplotlib plot with variable line width

Question

Is it possible to plot a line with variable line width in matplotlib? For example:

from pylab import *
x = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
y = [1, 2, 2, 0, 0]
width = [.5,          


        

Answer 1

Use LineCollections. A way to do it along the lines of this Matplotlib example is

import numpy as np
from matplotlib.collections import LineCollection
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
x = np.linspace(0,4*np.pi,10000)
y = np.cos(x)
lwidths=1+x[:-1]
points = np.array([x, y]).T.reshape(-1, 1, 2)
segments = np.concatenate([points[:-1], points[1:]], axis=1)
lc = LineCollection(segments, linewidths=lwidths,color='blue')
fig,a = plt.subplots()
a.add_collection(lc)
a.set_xlim(0,4*np.pi)
a.set_ylim(-1.1,1.1)
fig.show()