matplotlib.axes.Axes.pcolormesh

Axes.pcolormesh(*args, data=None, **kwargs)

Plot a quadrilateral mesh.

Call signatures:

pcolormesh(C)
pcolormesh(X, Y, C)
pcolormesh(C, **kwargs)

Create a pseudocolor plot of a 2-D array.

pcolormesh is similar to pcolor(), but uses a different mechanism and returns a different object; pcolor returns a PolyCollection but pcolormesh returns a QuadMesh. It is much faster, so it is almost always preferred for large arrays.

C may be a masked array, but X and Y may not. Masked array support is implemented via cmap and norm; in contrast, pcolor() simply does not draw quadrilaterals with masked colors or vertices.

Keyword arguments:

cmap: [ None | Colormap ]

A matplotlib.colors.Colormap instance. If None, use rc settings.

norm: [ None | Normalize ]

A matplotlib.colors.Normalize instance is used to scale luminance data to 0,1. If None, defaults to normalize().

vmin/vmax: [ None | scalar ]

vmin and vmax are used in conjunction with norm to normalize luminance data. If either is None, it is autoscaled to the respective min or max of the color array C. If not None, vmin or vmax passed in here override any pre-existing values supplied in the norm instance.

shading: [ ‘flat’ | ‘gouraud’ ]

‘flat’ indicates a solid color for each quad. When ‘gouraud’, each quad will be Gouraud shaded. When gouraud shading, edgecolors is ignored.

edgecolors: [None | 'None' | 'face' | color |

color sequence]

If None, the rc setting is used by default.

If 'None', edges will not be visible.

If 'face', edges will have the same color as the faces.

An mpl color or sequence of colors will set the edge color

alpha: 0 <= scalar <= 1 or None

the alpha blending value

Return value is a matplotlib.collections.QuadMesh object.

kwargs can be used to control the matplotlib.collections.QuadMesh properties:

Property	Description
`agg_filter`	unknown
`alpha`	float or None
`animated`	[True \| False]
`antialiased` or antialiaseds	Boolean or sequence of booleans
`array`	unknown
`clim`	a length 2 sequence of floats
`clip_box`	a `matplotlib.transforms.Bbox` instance
`clip_on`	[True \| False]
`clip_path`	[ (`Path`, `Transform`) \| `Patch` \| None ]
`cmap`	a colormap or registered colormap name
`color`	matplotlib color arg or sequence of rgba tuples
`contains`	a callable function
`edgecolor` or edgecolors	matplotlib color spec or sequence of specs
`facecolor` or facecolors	matplotlib color spec or sequence of specs
`figure`	a `matplotlib.figure.Figure` instance
`gid`	an id string
`hatch`	[ ‘/’ \| ‘' \| ‘\|’ \| ‘-‘ \| ‘+’ \| ‘x’ \| ‘o’ \| ‘O’ \| ‘.’ \| ‘*’ ]
`label`	string or anything printable with ‘%s’ conversion.
`linestyle` or dashes or linestyles	[‘solid’ \| ‘dashed’, ‘dashdot’, ‘dotted’ \| (offset, on-off-dash-seq) \| `'-'` \| `'--'` \| `'-.'` \| `':'` \| `'None'` \| `' '` \| `''`]
`linewidth` or linewidths or lw	float or sequence of floats
`norm`	unknown
`offset_position`	unknown
`offsets`	float or sequence of floats
`path_effects`	unknown
`picker`	[None\|float\|boolean\|callable]
`pickradius`	unknown
`rasterized`	[True \| False \| None]
`sketch_params`	unknown
`snap`	unknown
`transform`	`Transform` instance
`url`	a url string
`urls`	unknown
`visible`	[True \| False]
`zorder`	any number