There are essentially two ways to use Matplotlib:
- Explicitly create figures and axes, and call methods on them (the "object-oriented (OO) style").
- Rely on pyplot to automatically create and manage the figures and axes, and use pyplot functions for plotting.
x = np.linspace(0, 2, 100)
# Note that even in the OO-style, we use `.pyplot.figure` to create the figure.
fig, ax = plt.subplots() # Create a figure and an axes.
ax.plot(x, x, label='linear') # Plot some data on the axes.
ax.plot(x, x**2, label='quadratic') # Plot more data on the axes...
ax.plot(x, x**3, label='cubic') # ... and some more.
ax.set_xlabel('x label') # Add an x-label to the axes.
ax.set_ylabel('y label') # Add a y-label to the axes.
ax.set_title("Simple Plot") # Add a title to the axes.
ax.legend() # Add a legend.
x = np.linspace(0, 2, 100)
plt.plot(x, x, label='linear') # Plot some data on the (implicit) axes.
plt.plot(x, x**2, label='quadratic') # etc.
plt.plot(x, x**3, label='cubic')
plt.xlabel('x label')
plt.ylabel('y label')
plt.title("Simple Plot")
plt.legend()