How to plot figures in subplots

Question

I understand there are various ways to plot multiple graphs in one figure. One such way is using axes, e.g.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot([range(8)])
ax.plot(...)

Since I have a function that beautifies my graphs and subsequently returns a figure, I would like to use that figure to be plotted in my subplots. It should look similar to this:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot(figure1) # where figure is a plt.figure object
ax.plot(figure2)

This does not work but how can I make it work? Is there a way to put figures inside subplots or a workaround to plot multiple figures in one overall figure?

Any help on this is much appreciated. Thanks in advance for your comments.

Answer 1

If the goal is just to customize individual subplots, why not change your function to change the current figure on the fly rather than return a figure. From matplotlib and seaborn, can you just change the plot settings as they are being plotted?

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

plt.figure()

x1 = np.linspace(0.0, 5.0)
x2 = np.linspace(0.0, 2.0)

y1 = np.cos(2 * np.pi * x1) * np.exp(-x1)
y2 = np.cos(2 * np.pi * x2)

plt.subplot(2, 1, 1)
plt.plot(x1, y1, 'ko-')
plt.title('A tale of 2 subplots')
plt.ylabel('Damped oscillation')

import seaborn as sns

plt.subplot(2, 1, 2)
plt.plot(x2, y2, 'r.-')
plt.xlabel('time (s)')
plt.ylabel('Undamped')

plt.show()

Perhaps I don't understand your question entirely. Is this 'beautification' function complex?...

Answer 2

A possible solution is

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Create two subplots horizontally aligned (one row, two columns)
fig, ax = plt.subplots(1,2)
# Note that ax is now an array consisting of the individual axis

ax[0].plot(data1) 
ax[1].plot(data2)

However, in order to work data1,2 needs to be data. If you have a function which already plots the data for you I would recommend to include an axis argument to your function. For example

def my_plot(data,ax=None):
    if ax == None:
        # your previous code
    else:
        # your modified code which plots directly to the axis
        # for example: ax.plot(data)

Then you can plot it like

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Create two subplots horizontally aligned
fig, ax = plt.subplots(2)
# Note that ax is now an array consisting of the individual axis

my_plot(data1,ax=ax[0])
my_plot(data2,ax=ax[1])