Fancy subplot grid

GridSpec is your friend

Introduction

With GridSpec you can create any combination of panels

The code

import numpy as np
import matplotlib
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.gridspec as gridspec
from matplotlib.ticker import FuncFormatter
import seaborn as sns
sns.set(style="ticks", font_scale=1.5)

# figsize accepts only inches.
fig = plt.figure(1, figsize=(8, 6))
gs = gridspec.GridSpec(3, 2, width_ratios=[1,0.5], height_ratios=[1,0.7,0.3])
gs.update(left=0.16, right=0.86,top=0.88, bottom=0.13, hspace=0.05, wspace=0.05)

###########
# subplot a
###########
ax0 = plt.subplot(gs[0, :])

heaviside = lambda x: 0.5 * (np.sign(x) + 1)
x = np.arange(0, 10.01, 0.01)
ax0.plot(x, heaviside(x - 2), color='purple', lw=3)
ax0.text(2.5, 1.1, r"$\longleftarrow$ heaviside")

# y ticks as a percentage
ax0.set_yticks(np.arange(-0.5, 2.0, 0.5))
def to_percent(y, position):
    # Ignore the passed in position. This has the effect of scaling the default
    # tick locations.
    s = "{:+.0f}".format(y * 100)  # str(100 * y)
    # The percent symbol needs escaping in latex
    if matplotlib.rcParams['text.usetex'] is True:
        return s + r'$\%$'
    else:
        return s + '%'
# Create the formatter using the function to_percent. This multiplies all the
# default labels by 100, making them all percentages
formatter = FuncFormatter(to_percent)
# Set the formatter
ax0.yaxis.set_major_formatter(formatter)
ax0.set_ylabel("heaviside, percentage")

# x ticks on top
ax0.axis([x.min(), x.max(), -0.5, 1.5])
ax0.xaxis.tick_top()
ax0.set_xlabel(r"x labels on top")
ax0.xaxis.set_label_position("top")

# transAxes makes position relative to axes
ax0.text(0.97, 0.97, r"a", transform=ax0.transAxes,
         horizontalalignment='right', verticalalignment='top',
         fontweight="bold")

# copy window with same x axis (y will be different)
ax0b = ax0.twinx()
ax0b.plot(x, np.tanh(x - 5), color="green", linewidth=3)
ax0b.axis([x.min(), x.max(), -1.1, 2.5])
ax0b.text(5.5, 0, r"tanh $\longrightarrow$")
ax0b.set_ylabel(r'tanh, offset label')
ax0b.yaxis.set_label_coords(1.1, 0.70)

###########
# subplot b
###########
ax10 = plt.subplot(gs[1, 0])

x = np.arange(-5, 5, 0.01)
y = np.exp(-x)
ax10.plot(x, y, color="orange", lw=3)
ax10.set_yscale('log', base=2)
ax10.set_yticks(2.0 ** np.arange(-7, 7, 3))
ax10.text(1.0, 1, r"$y=e^{-x}$")
ax10.set_xticks(np.arange(-5, 6, 2))
ax10.set_xticklabels(np.arange(-5, 6, 2), y=0.15)
ax10.get_yaxis().set_tick_params(direction='out')
ax10.set_ylabel("log scale base 2", labelpad=15)
ax10.text(0.97, 0.97, r"b", transform=ax10.transAxes,
          horizontalalignment='right', verticalalignment='top',
          fontweight="bold")

###########
# subplot c
###########
ax11 = plt.subplot(gs[1, 1])

x = np.arange(1.0, np.e ** 4, 0.01)
y = x ** (-0.8)
ax11.plot(x, y, color="cyan", lw=3)
ax11.text(2, 1, r"$y=x^{-0.8}$")
ax11.loglog(x, y)
ax11.set_xscale("log", base=np.e)
ax11.set_yscale("log", base=np.e)
xt = np.exp(np.arange(1, 4, 1))
yt = np.pi ** (np.arange(-3, 2, 1))
ax11.set_xticks(xt)
ax11.set_xticklabels(xt, y=0.15)
ax11.set_yticks(yt)


def ticks_e(y, pos):   # base e
    return r'$e^{:.0f}$'.format(np.log(y))


def ticks_pi(y, pos):  # base pi, why not?
    return r'$\pi^{%+.0f}$'%(np.log(y)/np.log(np.pi))


ax11.xaxis.set_major_formatter(FuncFormatter(ticks_e))
ax11.yaxis.set_major_formatter(FuncFormatter(ticks_pi))
ax11.yaxis.tick_right()
ax11.yaxis.set_label_position("right")
ax11.set_ylabel("right side", labelpad=10)
ax11.text(0.97, 0.97, r"c", transform=ax11.transAxes,
          horizontalalignment='right', verticalalignment='top',
          fontweight="bold")

###########
# subplot d
###########
ax20 = plt.subplot(gs[2, 0])

ax20.axis([0, 1, 0, 1])
ax20.set_xticks(np.arange(0, 1.1, 0.2))
ax20.set_xticklabels(["January", "February",
                      "March", "April",
                      "May", "June"],
                      rotation=30, horizontalalignment="right")
ax20.set_yticks([])
ax20.text(0.97, 0.97, r"d", transform=ax20.transAxes,
          horizontalalignment='right', verticalalignment='top',
          fontweight="bold")

###########
# subplot e
###########
ax21 = plt.subplot(gs[2, 1])

ax21.set_xticks([])
ax21.set_yticks([])
ax21.axis([0, 1, 0, 1])
ax21.text(0.97, 0.97, r"e", transform=ax21.transAxes,
          horizontalalignment='right', verticalalignment='top',
          fontweight="bold")

fig.savefig("subplot-grid.png", dpi=300)
fig