Remove The Extra Plot In The Matplotlib Subplot

I want to plot 5 data frames in a 2 by 3 setting (i.e. 2 rows and 3 columns). This is my code: However there is an extra empty plot in the 6th position (second row and third column

Solution 1:

Try this:

fig.delaxes(axes[1][2])

A much more flexible way to create subplots is the fig.add_axes() method. The parameters is a list of rect coordinates: fig.add_axes([x, y, xsize, ysize]). The values are relative to the canvas size, so an xsize of 0.5 means the subplot has half the width of the window.

Solution 2:

Alternatively, using axes method set_axis_off():

axes[1,2].set_axis_off()

Solution 3:

If you know which plot to remove, you can give the index and remove like this:

axes.flat[-1].set_visible(False) # to remove last plot

Solution 4:

Turn off all axes, and turn them on one-by-one only when you're plotting on them. Then you don't need to know the index ahead of time, e.g.:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

columns = ["a", "b", "c", "d"]
fig, axes = plt.subplots(nrows=len(columns))

for ax in axes:
    ax.set_axis_off()

for c, ax in zip(columns, axes):
    if c == "d":
        print("I didn't actually need 'd'")
        continue

    ax.set_axis_on()
    ax.set_title(c)

plt.tight_layout()
plt.show()

Solution 5:

Previous solutions do not work with sharex=True. If you have that, please consider the solution below, it also deals with 2 dimensional subplot layout.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt


columns = ["a", "b", "c", "d"]
fig, axes = plt.subplots(4,1, sharex=True)


plotted = {}
for c, ax in zip(columns, axes.ravel()):
    plotted[ax] = 0
    if c == "d":
        print("I didn't actually need 'd'")
        continue
    ax.plot([1,2,3,4,5,6,5,4,6,7])
    ax.set_title(c)
    plotted[ax] = 1

if axes.ndim == 2:
    for a, axs in enumerate(reversed(axes)):
        for b, ax in enumerate(reversed(axs)):
            if plotted[ax] == 0:
                # one can use get_lines(), get_images(), findobj() for the propose
                ax.set_axis_off()
                # now find the plot above
                axes[-2-a][-1-b].xaxis.set_tick_params(which='both', labelbottom=True)
            else:
                break # usually only the last few plots are empty, but delete this line if not the case
else:
    for i, ax in enumerate(reversed(axes)):
        if plotted[ax] == 0:
            ax.set_axis_off()
            axes[-2-i].xaxis.set_tick_params(which='both', labelbottom=True)
            # should also work with horizontal subplots
            # all modifications to the tick params should happen after this
        else:
            break

plt.show()

2 dimensional fig, axes = plot.subplots(2,2, sharex=True)