Showing several sparse matrix plots with IPython and matplotlib

Question

I'm using IPython and matplotlib to show sparce matricies, like this:

%matplotlib inline
import math

a = [ [randint(2) for j in range(0,5)] for i in range(0, 5)]
spy(a)

matplotlib output

Is it possible to call spy in a loop, to show several plots? This code only shows one, but I'd like it to show all five.

plots = [ [ [randint(2) for j in range(0,5)] for i in range(0, 5)] for x in range(0,5)]

for plot in plots:
    spy(plot)

askewchan · Accepted Answer · 2013-12-13 16:52:51Z

1

You can call it in a loop, but first let's make five random 5x5 sparse arrays:

ms = np.random.randint(0, 2, (5, 5, 5))

If you want them to show up as separate figures, you must create a new figure each time:

for m in ms:
    plt.figure()
    plt.spy(m)

Or, you can make 1 figure with 5 subplots:

f, axes = plt.subplots(1, 5)  # 1 row, 5 columns
for ax, m in zip(axes, ms):
    ax.spy(m)

answered Dec 13, 2013 at 16:52

askewchan

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