""" ========================= Multilevel (nested) ticks ========================= Sometimes we want another level of tick labels on an axis, perhaps to indicate a grouping of the ticks. Matplotlib does not provide an automated way to do this, but it is relatively straightforward to annotate below the main axis. These examples use `.Axes.secondary_xaxis`, which is one approach. It has the advantage that we can use Matplotlib Locators and Formatters on the axis that does the grouping if we want. This first example creates a secondary xaxis and manually adds the ticks and labels using `.Axes.set_xticks`. Note that the tick labels have a newline (e.g. ``"\nOughts"``) at the beginning of them to put the second-level tick labels below the main tick labels. """ import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import numpy as np import matplotlib.dates as mdates rng = np.random.default_rng(19680801) fig, ax = plt.subplots(layout='constrained', figsize=(4, 4)) ax.plot(np.arange(30)) sec = ax.secondary_xaxis(location=0) sec.set_xticks([5, 15, 25], labels=['\nOughts', '\nTeens', '\nTwenties']) # %% # This second example adds a second level of annotation to a categorical axis. # Here we need to note that each animal (category) is assigned an integer, so # ``cats`` is at x=0, ``dogs`` at x=1 etc. Then we place the ticks on the # second level on an x that is at the middle of the animal class we are trying # to delineate. # # This example also adds tick marks between the classes by adding a second # secondary xaxis, and placing long, wide ticks at the boundaries between the # animal classes. fig, ax = plt.subplots(layout='constrained', figsize=(7, 4)) ax.plot(['cats', 'dogs', 'pigs', 'snakes', 'lizards', 'chickens', 'eagles', 'herons', 'buzzards'], rng.normal(size=9), 'o') # label the classes: sec = ax.secondary_xaxis(location=0) sec.set_xticks([1, 3.5, 6.5], labels=['\n\nMammals', '\n\nReptiles', '\n\nBirds']) sec.tick_params('x', length=0) # lines between the classes: sec2 = ax.secondary_xaxis(location=0) sec2.set_xticks([-0.5, 2.5, 4.5, 8.5], labels=[]) sec2.tick_params('x', length=40, width=1.5) ax.set_xlim(-0.6, 8.6) # %% # Dates are another common place where we may want to have a second level of # tick labels. In this last example, we take advantage of the ability to add # an automatic locator and formatter to the secondary xaxis, which means we do # not need to set the ticks manually. # # This example also differs from the above, in that we placed it at a location # below the main axes ``location=-0.075`` and then we hide the spine by setting # the line width to zero. That means that our formatter no longer needs the # carriage returns of the previous two examples. fig, ax = plt.subplots(layout='constrained', figsize=(7, 4)) time = np.arange(np.datetime64('2020-01-01'), np.datetime64('2020-03-31'), np.timedelta64(1, 'D')) ax.plot(time, rng.random(size=len(time))) # just format the days: ax.xaxis.set_major_formatter(mdates.DateFormatter('%d')) # label the months: sec = ax.secondary_xaxis(location=-0.075) sec.xaxis.set_major_locator(mdates.MonthLocator(bymonthday=1)) # note the extra spaces in the label to align the month label inside the month. # Note that this could have been done by changing ``bymonthday`` above as well: sec.xaxis.set_major_formatter(mdates.DateFormatter(' %b')) sec.tick_params('x', length=0) sec.spines['bottom'].set_linewidth(0) # label the xaxis, but note for this to look good, it needs to be on the # secondary xaxis. sec.set_xlabel('Dates (2020)') plt.show()