Mixed Subplots in Python

How to make mixed subplots in Python with Plotly.

New to Plotly?

Plotly is a free and open-source graphing library for Python. We recommend you read our Getting Started guide for the latest installation or upgrade instructions, then move on to our Plotly Fundamentals tutorials or dive straight in to some Basic Charts tutorials.

Mixed Subplots and Plotly Express¶

Plotly Express is the easy-to-use, high-level interface to Plotly, which operates on a variety of types of data and produces easy-to-style figures.

Note: At this time, Plotly Express does not support creating figures with arbitrary mixed subplots i.e. figures with subplots of different types. Plotly Express only supports facet plots and marginal distribution subplots. To make a figure with mixed subplots, use the make_subplots() function in conjunction with graph objects as documented below.

Mixed Subplot¶

In [1]:

import plotly.graph_objects as go
from plotly.subplots import make_subplots

import pandas as pd

# read in volcano database data
df = pd.read_csv(
    "https://raw.githubusercontent.com/plotly/datasets/master/volcano_db.csv",
    encoding="iso-8859-1",
)

# frequency of Country
freq = df['Country'].value_counts().reset_index()
freq.columns = ['x', 'Country']

# read in 3d volcano surface data
df_v = pd.read_csv("https://raw.githubusercontent.com/plotly/datasets/master/volcano.csv")

# Initialize figure with subplots
fig = make_subplots(
    rows=2, cols=2,
    column_widths=[0.6, 0.4],
    row_heights=[0.4, 0.6],
    specs=[[{"type": "scattergeo", "rowspan": 2}, {"type": "bar"}],
           [            None                    , {"type": "surface"}]])

# Add scattergeo globe map of volcano locations
fig.add_trace(
    go.Scattergeo(lat=df["Latitude"],
                  lon=df["Longitude"],
                  mode="markers",
                  hoverinfo="text",
                  showlegend=False,
                  marker=dict(color="crimson", size=4, opacity=0.8)),
    row=1, col=1
)

# Add locations bar chart
fig.add_trace(
    go.Bar(x=freq["x"][0:10],y=freq["Country"][0:10], marker=dict(color="crimson"), showlegend=False),
    row=1, col=2
)

# Add 3d surface of volcano
fig.add_trace(
    go.Surface(z=df_v.values.tolist(), showscale=False),
    row=2, col=2
)

# Update geo subplot properties
fig.update_geos(
    projection_type="orthographic",
    landcolor="white",
    oceancolor="MidnightBlue",
    showocean=True,
    lakecolor="LightBlue"
)

# Rotate x-axis labels
fig.update_xaxes(tickangle=45)

# Set theme, margin, and annotation in layout
fig.update_layout(
    template="plotly_dark",
    margin=dict(r=10, t=25, b=40, l=60),
    annotations=[
        dict(
            text="Source: NOAA",
            showarrow=False,
            xref="paper",
            yref="paper",
            x=0,
            y=0)
    ]
)

fig.show()

Reference¶

See https://plotly.com/python/reference/ for more information and chart attribute options!

What About Dash?¶

Dash is an open-source framework for building analytical applications, with no Javascript required, and it is tightly integrated with the Plotly graphing library.

Learn about how to install Dash at https://dash.plot.ly/installation.

Everywhere in this page that you see fig.show(), you can display the same figure in a Dash application by passing it to the figure argument of the Graph component from the built-in dash_core_components package like this:

import plotly.graph_objects as go # or plotly.express as px
fig = go.Figure() # or any Plotly Express function e.g. px.bar(...)
# fig.add_trace( ... )
# fig.update_layout( ... )

from dash import Dash, dcc, html

app = Dash()
app.layout = html.Div([
    dcc.Graph(figure=fig)
])

app.run_server(debug=True, use_reloader=False)  # Turn off reloader if inside Jupyter