The pyplot.scatter() function in matplotlib is used to create a scatter plot. The pyplot module has a function called scatter(), among many other functions, which helps to create or draw scatter plots.
Uses dots to represent data points but does not join those points with lines.
Shows the relationship between two numeric variables. This relation can be used to perform data analysis.
Before we look at how to set colors to a scatter plot, let’s look at how to create two scatter plots on the same graph.
As mentioned earlier, we use the pyplot.scatter() function in matplotlib, which takes two mandatory arguments:
An array of x-coordinates.
An array of y-coordinates.
Both of these arrays must be of the same length.
import matplotlib.pyplot as pltimport numpy as np# x-coordinates for both the scatter plotsx = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10])# the first scatter ploty1 = np.array([10, 50, 30, 40, 50, 25, 70, 15, 90, 65])plt.scatter(x, y1)# the second scatter ploty2 = np.array([5, 35, 40, 45, 80, 20, 95, 55, 70, 10])plt.scatter(x,y2)# displaying both plotsplt.show()
Line 1: In matplotlib, the pyplot module is imported, which will be used to create plots.
Line 2: The numpy module is imported, which will be used to create arrays.
Line 5: The array x is created, containing the x-coordinates common to both plots.
Lines 8 to 9: The array y1 is created, which contains the y-coordinates for the first scatter plot. pyplot.scatter(x,y1) is used to create a scatter plot of x and y1.
Lines 12 to 13: The array y2 is created, which contains the y-coordinates for the second scatter plot. pyplot.scatter(x,y2) is used to create a scatter plot of x and y2.
Line 16: The pyplot.show() function is used, which tells pyplot to display both the scatter plots.
Note: Notice that the two plots in the figure above gave two different colors. By default,
pyplotreturnedorangeandblue.
To set the colors of a scatter plot, we need to set the argument color or simply c to the pyplot.scatter() function.
For example, take a look at the code below:
plt.scatter(x, y, color = 'red')
The above code means that we are setting the color of the scatter plot as red.
import matplotlib.pyplot as pltimport numpy as np# x-coordinates for both the scatter plotsx = np.array([1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10])# the first scatter ploty1 = np.array([10, 50, 30, 40, 50, 25, 70, 15, 90, 65])plt.scatter(x, y1, color = 'red')# the second scatter ploty2 = np.array([5, 35, 40, 45, 80, 20, 95, 55, 70, 10])plt.scatter(x,y2, color = 'green')# displaying both plotsplt.show()