Adding an arbitrary line to a matplotlib plot in ipython notebook

Question

I\'m rather new to both python/matplotlib and using it through the ipython notebook. I\'m trying to add some annotation lines to an existing graph and I can\'t figure out ho

Answer 1

Rather than abusing plot or annotate, which will be inefficient for many lines, you can use matplotlib.collections.LineCollection:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.collections import LineCollection

np.random.seed(5)
x = np.arange(1, 101)
y = 20 + 3 * x + np.random.normal(0, 60, 100)
plt.plot(x, y, "o")

# Takes list of lines, where each line is a sequence of coordinates
l1 = [(70, 100), (70, 250)]
l2 = [(70, 90), (90, 200)]
lc = LineCollection([l1, l2], color=["k","blue"], lw=2)

plt.gca().add_collection(lc)

plt.show()

It takes a list of lines [l1, l2, ...], where each line is a sequence of N coordinates (N can be more than two).

The standard formatting keywords are available, accepting either a single value, in which case the value applies to every line, or a sequence of M values, in which case the value for the ith line is values[i % M].