DATA VISUALIZATION

Basic components of Graph

A graph has the following basic components:

1. Figure or chart area: The entire area covered by the graph is known as a
figure. It can be also considered as a canvas or chart area also.
2. Axis: These are the number of lines generated on the plot. Basically, there are
two axis X and Y-axis.
3. Artist: The components like text objects, Line 2D objects, collection objects, etc.
4. Titles: There are few titles involved with your charts such as Chart Title, Axis
title, etc.
5. Legends: Legends are the information that represents data with lines or dots.

matplotlib Introduction
Python supports a variety of packages to handle data. Matplotlib is also one of the most
important packages out of them. It is a low-level library integrated with Matlab like
interface offers few lines of code and draw graphs or charts. It has modules such as a
pyplot to draw and create graphs.
Steps – how to create graphs using matplotlib
The following are basic steps to create a chart.
Step 1 Installation of matplotlib
Install matplotlib by following these simple steps:
Step 1: Open cmd from the start menu
Step 2: Type pip install matplotlib

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Step 2 import module

Import matplotlib.pylot using import command in the following two ways:

1. Without instance: import matplotlib.pyplot

2. With instance: import matplotlib.pyplot as mpp

Step 3 Choose desired plot type (graph type)

In this step, select your desired chart type for plotting. For example, line chart

Step 4 Give proper labels to axis, categories

A graph is made up of two-axis i.e. X and Y-axis. In this step label them as per the need
as well as apply proper labels for categories also.

Step 5 Add data points

The next point is to add data points. Data points depict the point on the plot at a
particular place.

Step 6 Add more functionality like colours, sizes etc

To make your graphs more effective and informative use different colours and different
sizes.
The common method used to plot a chart is plot().

The PyPlot package

The Pyplot package provides an interface to plot the graph automatically as per the
requirements. You just need to provide accurate values for axes, categories, labels,
title, legend, and data points.
Matplotlib provides the following types of graphs in python:

• Line plot
• Bar graph
• Histogram
• Pie chart
• Scatter chart

Creating a Line chart or Plotting lines

To create a line chart following functions are used:

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• plot(x,y,color,others): Draw lines as per specified lines

• xlabel(“label”): For label to x-axis
• ylabel(“label”): For label to y-axis
• title(“Title”): For title of the axes
• legend(): For displaying legends
• show() : Display the graph

Now observe the following code:

import matplotlib.pyplot as mpp

mpp.plot(['English','Maths','Hindi'],[88,90,94],'Red')
mpp.xlabel('Subjects')
mpp.ylabel('Marks')
mpp.title('Progress Report Chart')
mpp.show()

Output:

Line plot in Python 3.8.3

In the above code, 3 subject marks are plotted on the figure. The navigation toolbar
helps to navigate through the graph. Now observe the following code for plotting
multiple lines on the graph.
import matplotlib.pyplot as mpp
o=[5,10,15,20]
r_india=[30,80,120,200]
mpp.plot(o,r_india,'Red')
r_aust=[25,85,100,186]
mpp.plot(o,r_aust,'Yellow')
mpp.xlabel('Runs')
mpp.ylabel('Overs')
mpp.title('Match Summary')
mpp.show()
Output:

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Multiline chart using Python 3.8.3

So now you understand how to plot lines on the figure. You can change the colour using
abbreviations and line style by using the linestyle parameter also. Just do the following
changes in above-given code and see the output:
mpp.plot(o,r_india,’m’,linestyle=’:’)
mpp.plot(o,r_aust,’y’,linestyle=’-.’)
Bar Graph
The bar graph represents data in horizontal or vertical bars. The bar() function is used
to create bar graph. It is most commonly used for 2D data representation. Just have a
look at the following code:

import matplotlib.pyplot as mpp

overs=[5,10,15,20]
runs=[30,80,120,200]
mpp.bar(runs,overs,width=30, label='Runs',color='r')
mpp.xlabel('Runs')
mpp.ylabel('Overs')
mpp.title('Match Summary')
mpp.legend()
mpp.show()
Output:

Bar Graph in python 3.8.3

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