CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpandasmatplotlib
Peter Moore
Peter Moore

Reputation: 2086

How to use pandas with matplotlib to create 3D plots

I am struggling a bit with the pandas transformations needed to make data render in 3D on matplot lib. The data I have is usually in columns of numbers (usually time and some value). So lets create some test data to illustrate.

import pandas as pd

pattern = ("....1...."
           "....1...."
           "..11111.."
           ".1133311."
           "111393111"
           ".1133311."
           "..11111.."
           "....1...."
           "....1....")

# create the data and coords
Zdata = list(map(lambda d:0 if d == '.' else int(d), pattern))
Zinverse = list(map(lambda d:1 if d == '.' else -int(d), pattern))
Xdata = [x for y in range(1,10) for x in range(1,10)]
Ydata = [y for y in range(1,10) for x in range(1,10)]
# pivot the data into columns
data = [d for d in zip(Xdata,Ydata,Zdata,Zinverse)]

# create the data frame 
df = pd.DataFrame(data, columns=['X','Y','Z',"Zi"], index=zip(Xdata,Ydata))
df.head(5)

enter image description here

Edit: This block of data is demo data that would normally come from a query on a database that may need more cleaning and transforms before plotting. In this case data is already aligned and there are no problems aside having one more column we don't need (Zi).

So the numbers in pattern are transferred into height data in the Z column of df ('Zi' being the inverse image) and with that as the data frame I've struggled to come up with this pivot method which is 3 separate operations. I wonder if that can be better.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
import matplotlib.cm as cm

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')

Xs = df.pivot(index='X', columns='Y', values='X').values
Ys = df.pivot(index='X', columns='Y', values='Y').values
Zs = df.pivot(index='X', columns='Y', values='Z').values

ax.plot_surface(Xs,Ys,Zs, cmap=cm.RdYlGn)

plt.show()

enter image description here

Although I have something working I feel there must be a better way than what I'm doing. On a big data set I would imagine doing 3 pivots is an expensive way to plot something. Is there a more efficient way to transform this data ?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 253

Answers (1)

mgc
mgc

Reputation: 5443

I guess you can avoid some steps during the preparation of the data by not using pandas (but only numpy arrays) and by using some convenience fonctions provided by numpy such as linespace and meshgrid.

I rewrote your code to do so, trying to keep the same logic and the same variable names :

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.cm as cm

pattern = ("....1...."
           "....1...."
           "..11111.."
           ".1133311."
           "111393111"
           ".1133311."
           "..11111.."
           "....1...."
           "....1....")


# Extract the value according to your logic
Zdata = list(map(lambda d:0 if d == '.' else int(d), pattern))

# Assuming the pattern is always a square
size = int(len(Zdata) ** 0.5)

# Create a mesh grid for plotting the surface
Xdata = np.linspace(1, size, size)
Ydata = np.linspace(1, size, size)
Xs, Ys = np.meshgrid(Xdata, Ydata)

# Convert the Zdata to a numpy array with the appropriate shape
Zs = np.array(Zdata).reshape((size, size))

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')

# Plot the surface
ax.plot_surface(Xs, Ys, Zs, cmap=cm.RdYlGn)
plt.show()

Upvotes: 1

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