4 plots with different sizes on one figure

Question

I need to create 4 plots, where there are two large ones and two stacked smaller ones to the right (the sum is the same as the large plots). Picture attached.

So far I managed only to create two separate figures:

fig, axs = plt.subplots(1, 3, figsize=(12, 4))
#plotting
fig, axs_right = plt.subplots(2, 1, figsize=(4, 8))
#plotting

The difficulty is that I need to plot with seaborn and have control over axes to change the way they look.

see https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2265319/how-to-make-an-axes-occupy-multiple-subplots-with-pyplot — ACarter, Jan 26 '23 at 15:37
In particular, suggest using subplot_mosaic: https://matplotlib.org/stable/tutorials/provisional/mosaic.html — Jody Klymak, Jan 26 '23 at 16:20

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jan 26 '23 at 15:40

2

This is a relatively simple layout you can achieve with plt.subplot2grid():

grid = (2, 3)

fig = plt.figure(figsize=(8, 6))  # or whatever

ax = plt.subplot2grid(grid, (0, 0), rowspan=2)  # left column plot
...

ax = plt.subplot2grid(grid, (0, 1), rowspan=2)  # middle column plot
...

ax = plt.subplot2grid(grid, (0, 2))  # right column upper plot
...

ax = plt.subplot2grid(grid, (1, 2))  # right column lower plot
...

Result:

answered Jan 26 '23 at 15:40

cheersmate

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Your code works, but if I add my plotting it still plots two separate figures: one with 2 large plots and one with two small plots – stasia_l Jan 26 '23 at 18:35
Then you must be creating a second figure somewhere... – cheersmate Jan 26 '23 at 19:28

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 27 '23 at 08:23

There are multiple ways of achieving that, it is described in the "Arranging multiple Axes in a Figure" part of the matplotlib documentation.

Below is a basic recopy for your case:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

figsize = (7, 4)

# Method 1
fig, axd = plt.subplot_mosaic(
    [
        ["1", "2", "3"],
        ["1", "2", "4"],
    ],
    figsize=figsize,
    layout="constrained",
)


# Method 2
fig = plt.figure(figsize=figsize, layout="constrained")
spec = fig.add_gridspec(ncols=3, nrows=2)

ax1 = fig.add_subplot(spec[:, 0])
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(spec[:, 1])
ax3 = fig.add_subplot(spec[0, 2])
ax4 = fig.add_subplot(spec[1, 2])


# Method 3
fig = plt.figure(figsize=figsize, layout="constrained")
spec0 = fig.add_gridspec(ncols=2, nrows=1, width_ratios=[2, 1])
spec01 = spec0[0].subgridspec(ncols=2, nrows=1)
spec02 = spec0[1].subgridspec(ncols=1, nrows=2)

ax1 = fig.add_subplot(spec01[0])
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(spec01[1])
ax3 = fig.add_subplot(spec02[0])
ax4 = fig.add_subplot(spec02[1])

plt.show()

4 plots with different sizes on one figure

2 Answers2