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

gg349's answer works nicely but cuts the line into many pieces, which can often creates bad rendering.

Here is an alternative example that generates continuous lines when the width is homogeneous:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

fig, ax = plt.subplots(1)
xs = np.cos(np.linspace(0, 8 * np.pi, 200)) * np.linspace(0, 1, 200)
ys = np.sin(np.linspace(0, 8 * np.pi, 200)) * np.linspace(0, 1, 200)
widths = np.round(np.linspace(1, 5, len(xs)))

def plot_widths(xs, ys, widths, ax=None, color='b', xlim=None, ylim=None,
                **kwargs):
    if not (len(xs) == len(ys) == len(widths)):
        raise ValueError('xs, ys, and widths must have identical lengths')
    fig = None
    if ax is None:
        fig, ax = plt.subplots(1)

    segmentx, segmenty = [xs[0]], [ys[0]]
    current_width = widths[0]
    for ii, (x, y, width) in enumerate(zip(xs, ys, widths)):
        segmentx.append(x)
        segmenty.append(y)
        if (width != current_width) or (ii == (len(xs) - 1)):
            ax.plot(segmentx, segmenty, linewidth=current_width, color=color,
                    **kwargs)
            segmentx, segmenty = [x], [y]
            current_width = width
    if xlim is None:
        xlim = [min(xs), max(xs)]
    if ylim is None:
        ylim = [min(ys), max(ys)]
    ax.set_xlim(xlim)
    ax.set_ylim(ylim)

    return ax if fig is None else fig

plot_widths(xs, ys, widths)
plt.show()