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

An alternative to Giulio Ghirardo's answer which divides the lines in segments you can use matplotlib's in-built scatter function which construct the line by using circles instead:

from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

x = np.linspace(0,10,10000)
y = 2 - 0.5*np.abs(x-4)
lwidths = (1+x)**2 # scatter 'o' marker size is specified by area not radius 
plt.scatter(x,y, s=lwidths, color='blue')
plt.xlim(0,9)
plt.ylim(0,2.1)
plt.show()

In my experience I have found two problems with dividing the line into segments:

1. For some reason the segments are always divided by very thin white lines. The colors of these lines get blended with the colors of the segments when using a very large amount of segments. Because of this the color of the line is not the same as the intended one.

2. It doesn't handle very well very sharp discontinuities.