如何在matplotlib中绘制渐变色线？

Question

为了以一般形式陈述它，我正在寻找一种使用 matplotlib将 具有 渐变色线的
多个点连接起来的方法，但在任何地方都找不到。更具体地说，我正在绘制一条单色线的2D随机游动图。但是，由于这些点具有相关的顺序，因此我想查看该图并查看数据已移至何处。渐变色线可以解决问题。或透明度逐渐变化的线。

我只是想改善数据的虚拟化。看看R的ggplot2软件包产生的这张精美图片。我正在matplotlib中寻找相同的图片。谢谢。

Answer 1

我最近以类似的要求回答了一个问题（使用matplotlib创建了20多种独特的图例颜色）。我在那里展示了您可以映射将线条绘制到颜色图所需的颜色循环。您可以使用相同的过程为每对点获取特定的颜色。

您应该仔细选择颜色图，因为如果颜色图是彩色的，则沿线的颜色过渡可能会显得很剧烈。

或者，您可以更改每个线段的Alpha，范围从0到1。

下面的代码示例中包含一个例程（highResPoints），用于扩展您的随机游走的点数，因为如果您的点数太少，则过渡可能看起来很困难。我最近提供的另一个答案启发了这段代码：https
:
//stackoverflow.com/a/8253729/717357

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

def highResPoints(x,y,factor=10):
    '''
    Take points listed in two vectors and return them at a higher
    resultion. Create at least factor*len(x) new points that include the
    original points and those spaced in between.

    Returns new x and y arrays as a tuple (x,y).
    '''

    # r is the distance spanned between pairs of points
    r = [0]
    for i in range(1,len(x)):
        dx = x[i]-x[i-1]
        dy = y[i]-y[i-1]
        r.append(np.sqrt(dx*dx+dy*dy))
    r = np.array(r)

    # rtot is a cumulative sum of r, it's used to save time
    rtot = []
    for i in range(len(r)):
        rtot.append(r[0:i].sum())
    rtot.append(r.sum())

    dr = rtot[-1]/(NPOINTS*RESFACT-1)
    xmod=[x[0]]
    ymod=[y[0]]
    rPos = 0 # current point on walk along data
    rcount = 1 
    while rPos < r.sum():
        x1,x2 = x[rcount-1],x[rcount]
        y1,y2 = y[rcount-1],y[rcount]
        dpos = rPos-rtot[rcount] 
        theta = np.arctan2((x2-x1),(y2-y1))
        rx = np.sin(theta)*dpos+x1
        ry = np.cos(theta)*dpos+y1
        xmod.append(rx)
        ymod.append(ry)
        rPos+=dr
        while rPos > rtot[rcount+1]:
            rPos = rtot[rcount+1]
            rcount+=1
            if rcount>rtot[-1]:
                break

    return xmod,ymod


#CONSTANTS
NPOINTS = 10
COLOR='blue'
RESFACT=10
MAP='winter' # choose carefully, or color transitions will not appear smoooth

# create random data
np.random.seed(101)
x = np.random.rand(NPOINTS)
y = np.random.rand(NPOINTS)

fig = plt.figure()
ax1 = fig.add_subplot(221) # regular resolution color map
ax2 = fig.add_subplot(222) # regular resolution alpha
ax3 = fig.add_subplot(223) # high resolution color map
ax4 = fig.add_subplot(224) # high resolution alpha

# Choose a color map, loop through the colors, and assign them to the color 
# cycle. You need NPOINTS-1 colors, because you'll plot that many lines 
# between pairs. In other words, your line is not cyclic, so there's 
# no line from end to beginning
cm = plt.get_cmap(MAP)
ax1.set_color_cycle([cm(1.*i/(NPOINTS-1)) for i in range(NPOINTS-1)])
for i in range(NPOINTS-1):
    ax1.plot(x[i:i+2],y[i:i+2])


ax1.text(.05,1.05,'Reg. Res - Color Map')
ax1.set_ylim(0,1.2)

# same approach, but fixed color and 
# alpha is scale from 0 to 1 in NPOINTS steps
for i in range(NPOINTS-1):
    ax2.plot(x[i:i+2],y[i:i+2],alpha=float(i)/(NPOINTS-1),color=COLOR)

ax2.text(.05,1.05,'Reg. Res - alpha')
ax2.set_ylim(0,1.2)

# get higher resolution data
xHiRes,yHiRes = highResPoints(x,y,RESFACT)
npointsHiRes = len(xHiRes)

cm = plt.get_cmap(MAP)

ax3.set_color_cycle([cm(1.*i/(npointsHiRes-1)) 
                     for i in range(npointsHiRes-1)])


for i in range(npointsHiRes-1):
    ax3.plot(xHiRes[i:i+2],yHiRes[i:i+2])

ax3.text(.05,1.05,'Hi Res - Color Map')
ax3.set_ylim(0,1.2)

for i in range(npointsHiRes-1):
    ax4.plot(xHiRes[i:i+2],yHiRes[i:i+2],
             alpha=float(i)/(npointsHiRes-1),
             color=COLOR)
ax4.text(.05,1.05,'High Res - alpha')
ax4.set_ylim(0,1.2)



fig.savefig('gradColorLine.png')
plt.show()

此图显示了四种情况：