Book Image

Matplotlib for Python Developers - Second Edition

By : Aldrin Yim, Claire Chung, Allen Yu
Book Image

Matplotlib for Python Developers - Second Edition

By: Aldrin Yim, Claire Chung, Allen Yu

Overview of this book

Python is a general-purpose programming language increasingly being used for data analysis and visualization. Matplotlib is a popular data visualization package in Python used to design effective plots and graphs. This is a practical, hands-on resource to help you visualize data with Python using the Matplotlib library. Matplotlib for Python Developers, Second Edition shows you how to create attractive graphs, charts, and plots using Matplotlib. You will also get a quick introduction to third-party packages, Seaborn, Pandas, Basemap, and Geopandas, and learn how to use them with Matplotlib. After that, you’ll embed and customize your plots in third-party tools such as GTK+3, Qt 5, and wxWidgets. You’ll also be able to tweak the look and feel of your visualization with the help of practical examples provided in this book. Further on, you’ll explore Matplotlib 2.1.x on the web, from a cloud-based platform using third-party packages such as Django. Finally, you will integrate interactive, real-time visualization techniques into your current workflow with the help of practical real-world examples. By the end of this book, you’ll be thoroughly comfortable with using the popular Python data visualization library Matplotlib 2.1.x and leveraging its power to build attractive, insightful, and powerful visualizations.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
Title Page
Dedication
Packt Upsell
Contributors
Preface
Index

Geographical plotting


To demonstrate the power of Matplotlib with third-party packages, we will illustrate its usage in spatial analysis. Since the invention of satellites, a myriad of useful Geographics Information System (GIS) data has been generated to facilitate various analyses, from natural phenomena to human activities.

To utilize this data, there are common Python packages integrated with Matplotlib to show spatial data on a map, such as Basemap, GeoPandas, Cartopy, and Descartes. In this final section of the chapter, we will briefly introduce the usage of the first two packages.

Basemap

Basemap is among the most popular Matplotlib-based plotting toolkits to plot over world maps. It is a handy way to show any geographical location.

To install Basemap, do this:

  1. Unpack in $Python3_dir/site-packages/mpl_toolkits
  2. Enter the Basemap installation directory: cd $basemap_dir
  3. Enter the geos directory in the Basemap directory: cd $basemap/geos-3.3.3
  4. Install the GEOS library via ./configure, make, and...