Colormaps and subfigures

Use named colormaps, RGB values, or hexadecimal colors to customize discrete and continuous variables. Combine several plots in one figure with either individual or shared colorbars.

Select colors

Use plopm -c with:

• A Matplotlib colormap name, such as viridis or Spectral.

• A Colorcet colormap name, such as cet_glasbey_bw.

• RGB colors written as red;green;blue values.

• Hexadecimal colors written as #RRGGBB.

Separate colors belonging to one discrete palette with spaces. Separate the color specifications for different plots with commas.

Compare three color specifications

Plot satnum, fipnum, and disperc with a custom RGB palette, a Colorcet colormap, and two hexadecimal colors:

plopm -i SPE11B -v satnum,fipnum,disperc -c '193;147;56 127;148;191 193;127;97 181;73;57 81;124;66 101;64;147 134;133;130',cet_glasbey_bw,'#b6c406 #fffa86' -sg 3,1 -rdl 1 -cbn 3,6,2 -cbf .0f,.0f,.1f -fs 7,4

satnum uses a custom RGB palette, fipnum uses cet_glasbey_bw, and disperc uses two hexadecimal colors.

The custom RGB palette contains seven colors, one for each SPE11 facies:

193;147;56
127;148;191
193;127;97
181;73;57
81;124;66
101;64;147
134;133;130

The remaining options control the combined figure:

• plopm -sg arranges the three plots in three rows and one column.

• plopm -rdl removes repeated axis labels.

• plopm -cbn sets 3, 6, and 2 colorbar ticks for the three plots.

• plopm -cbf sets the corresponding colorbar number formats.

• plopm -fs sets the figure size.

Note

Quote color specifications containing spaces, semicolons, or hexadecimal values so the shell passes them to plopm as one argument.

Subfigures with individual colorbars

Combine static and dynamic quantities in one figure. When the plotted quantities use different value ranges or colormaps, each subplot has its own colorbar:

plopm -i SPE11B -v poro,sgas,sgas -sg 1,3 -r 0,1,5 -st 0 -fs 25,2 -c terrain,jet,jet -cbn 5 -cbf .1f -fn poro_sgas

Porosity and gas saturation at two restart steps, displayed with individual colorbars.

The command applies the values in each comma-separated list in subplot order:

• poro is plotted at restart step 0 with the terrain colormap.

• The first sgas plot uses restart step 1 and the jet colormap.

• The second sgas plot uses restart step 5 and the jet colormap.

• plopm -sg arranges the three plots in one row.

• plopm -st removes the common figure title.

• plopm -fn sets the output filename to poro_sgas.

Subfigures with a shared colorbar

When subfigures show the same quantity from different inputs or restart steps, use one shared colorbar. Position and size the shared colorbar with plopm -cbp:

plopm -i 'SPE11B SPE11C SPE11B SPE11C' -sg 2,2 -v temp -s ',1, ,14, ,1, ,14,' -r 0,0,5,2 -st 0 -fs 10,10 -asp 0 -rdl 1 -c cet_diverging_rainbow_bgymr_45_85_c67_r -cbn 5 -cbp 0.15,0.92,0.7,0.02 -cbl 'Temperature [$^o$C]' -t 'SPE11B (initial temperature)  SPE11C (initial temperature)  SPE11B (end of simulation, 25 y)  SPE11C (end of simulation, 25 y)' -fz 15

Initial and final temperatures for SPE11B and SPE11C, displayed with one shared colorbar.

The four inputs, slices, restart steps, and titles correspond by position:

SPE11B -> slice ,1,  -> restart 0 -> initial SPE11B temperature
SPE11C -> slice ,14, -> restart 0 -> initial SPE11C temperature
SPE11B -> slice ,1,  -> restart 5 -> SPE11B after 25 years
SPE11C -> slice ,14, -> restart 2 -> SPE11C after 25 years

The shared-colorbar options are:

• plopm -cbp sets left,bottom,width,height in figure coordinates.

• plopm -cbn sets the number of colorbar ticks.

• plopm -cbl sets the shared colorbar label.

• plopm -c applies one common colormap to all four temperature maps.

plopm -asp disables equal axis scaling, while plopm -rdl removes repeated subplot labels. Two spaces separate the four titles supplied through plopm -t.

Reproduce this example

Run the complete workflow from the repository root:

. ./tests/scripts/docs_colormaps-subfigures.sh

View script

View raw script

Back to the examples gallery