Generate a heatmap in MatPlotLib using a scatter data set

Question

I have a set of X,Y data points (about 10k) that are easy to plot as a scatter plot but that I would like to represent as a heatmap.

I looked through the examples in

Answer 1

In Matplotlib lexicon, i think you want a hexbin plot.

If you're not familiar with this type of plot, it's just a bivariate histogram in which the xy-plane is tessellated by a regular grid of hexagons.

So from a histogram, you can just count the number of points falling in each hexagon, discretiize the plotting region as a set of windows, assign each point to one of these windows; finally, map the windows onto a color array, and you've got a hexbin diagram.

Though less commonly used than e.g., circles, or squares, that hexagons are a better choice for the geometry of the binning container is intuitive:

• hexagons have nearest-neighbor symmetry (e.g., square bins don't, e.g., the distance from a point on a square's border to a point inside that square is not everywhere equal) and

• hexagon is the highest n-polygon that gives regular plane tessellation (i.e., you can safely re-model your kitchen floor with hexagonal-shaped tiles because you won't have any void space between the tiles when you are finished--not true for all other higher-n, n >= 7, polygons).

(Matplotlib uses the term hexbin plot; so do (AFAIK) all of the plotting libraries for R; still i don't know if this is the generally accepted term for plots of this type, though i suspect it's likely given that hexbin is short for hexagonal binning, which is describes the essential step in preparing the data for display.)

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from matplotlib import pyplot as PLT
from matplotlib import cm as CM
from matplotlib import mlab as ML
import numpy as NP

n = 1e5
x = y = NP.linspace(-5, 5, 100)
X, Y = NP.meshgrid(x, y)
Z1 = ML.bivariate_normal(X, Y, 2, 2, 0, 0)
Z2 = ML.bivariate_normal(X, Y, 4, 1, 1, 1)
ZD = Z2 - Z1
x = X.ravel()
y = Y.ravel()
z = ZD.ravel()
gridsize=30
PLT.subplot(111)

# if 'bins=None', then color of each hexagon corresponds directly to its count
# 'C' is optional--it maps values to x-y coordinates; if 'C' is None (default) then 
# the result is a pure 2D histogram 

PLT.hexbin(x, y, C=z, gridsize=gridsize, cmap=CM.jet, bins=None)
PLT.axis([x.min(), x.max(), y.min(), y.max()])

cb = PLT.colorbar()
cb.set_label('mean value')
PLT.show()