Getting different markers shapes

📊 Plotly Python
1

This is my first post and is similar to this one (Different marker shapes in 3d scatter plot), but I can’t seem to get anything to work in python. First off, I am trying to make a multi-line graph (which I have done in both plt and plotly…code below), but being colorblind (which I am) I can’t often tell what I am looking in plotly because the markers are always a circle (even though the label is included, it sometimes gets cut off and I can’t figure out what I’m looking at).

I am using Jupyter Notebook ##(version: 5.4.0)
Python ##(version 3.6.4)

Screenshot of the dummy_data file.

dummy_data_screenshot
dummy_data_screenshot.JPG916×853 185 KB

In matplotlib, I did the following to get the output attached (note the different shape markers):

import matplotlib as mpl ##(version: 2.1.2)
import pandas as pd ##(version: 0.22.0)
import numpy as np ##(version: 1.14.0)

import plotly.graph_objs as go
from plotly.offline import download_plotlyjs, init_notebook_mode, plot, iplot
import cufflinks as cf ##(version: 0.12.1)

init_notebook_mode(connected=True)
cf.go_offline()

%matplotlib notebook

fx = df.groupby(['studyarm', 'visit'])['totdiffic_chg'].mean().unstack('studyarm').drop(['02_UNSCH','ZEOS'])


valid_markers = ([item[0] for item in mpl.markers.MarkerStyle.markers.items() if 
item[1] is not 'nothing' and not item[1].startswith('tick') 
and not item[1].startswith('caret')])

markers = np.random.choice(valid_markers, df.shape[1], replace=False)
ax = fx.plot(kind = 'line', linestyle='-')
for i, line in enumerate(ax.get_lines()):
    line.set_marker(markers[i])
ax.legend(loc='best')
ax.set_xticklabels(df.index, rotation=45)
plt.title('Some Made Up Data')
plt.ylabel('Score', fontsize=14)
plt.autoscale(enable=True, axis='x', tight=True)
plt.tight_layout()

image
image.png704×528 34.6 KB

I used the code below and it created the graph via plotly/cufflinks:

fx.iplot(kind='line', yTitle='Score', title='Some Made Up Data', mode=markers,\
           filename='cufflinks/simple-line')

newplot
newplot.png700×450 30.3 KB

I have searched the web for the last few days and I can see many options to change the color, opacity, etc., etc., but I can’t seem to figure out a way to automatically and randomly change the shape of the markers OR to manually change each individual line to a separate marker shape.

I am sure this is a simple fix, but I can’t figure it out. Any help (or nudge in the right direction) would be very much appreciated.!

2

First, you need to have cufflinks return the plot as a plotly figure:

fig = fx.iplot(kind='line', yTitle='Score', title='Some Made Up Data', mode=markers, asFigure=True)

Then, you need to set the marker symbol for each trace. Available marker symbols are listed here (all of the ones in your matplotlib example are available): https://plot.ly/python/reference/#scatter-marker-symbol

To set the symbol of the first trace, for example:

fig['data'][0]['marker']['symbol'] = 'triangle-left'
2 Likes
3

Hi Jack,

Thank You for your response. It works! Now I will start to mess with the code to autogenerate these.