How to overlay plots from different cells?

In one of the cells in my notebook, I already plotted something with

myplot = plt.figure() plt.plot(x,y)

Now, in a different cell, I’d like to plot the exact same figure again, but add new plots on top of it (similar to what happens with two consecutive calls to plt.plot()). What I tried was adding the following in the new cell:

myplot plt.plot(xnew,ynew)

However, the only thing I get in the new cell is the new plot, without the former one.

How can one achieve this?

Contents hide

Answers:

Method 1

A. Object-oriented approach

B. Keep figure in pyplot

Answers:

Thank you for visiting the Q&A section on Magenaut. Please note that all the answers may not help you solve the issue immediately. So please treat them as advisements. If you found the post helpful (or not), leave a comment & I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.

Method 1

There are essentially two ways to tackle this.

A. Object-oriented approach

Use the object-oriented approach, i.e. keep handles to the figure and/or axes and reuse them in later cells.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
%matplotlib inline

fig, ax=plt.subplots()
ax.plot([1,2,3])

Then in a later cell,

ax.plot([4,5,6])

B. Keep figure in pyplot

The other option is to tell the matplotlib inline backend to keep the figures open at the end of a cell.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
%matplotlib inline

%config InlineBackend.close_figures=False # keep figures open in pyplot

plt.plot([1,2,3])

Then in a later cell

plt.plot([4,5,6])