Possible to make labels appear when hovering over a point in matplotlib?

Question

I am using matplotlib to make scatter plots. Each point on the scatter plot is associated with a named object. I would like to be able to see the name of an object when I ho

Answer 1

If you use jupyter notebook, my solution is as simple as:

%pylab
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import mplcursors
plt.plot(...)
mplcursors.cursor(hover=True)
plt.show()

YOu can get something like

Answer 2

This solution works when hovering a line without the need to click it:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# Need to create as global variable so our callback(on_plot_hover) can access
fig = plt.figure()
plot = fig.add_subplot(111)

# create some curves
for i in range(4):
    # Giving unique ids to each data member
    plot.plot(
        [i*1,i*2,i*3,i*4],
        gid=i)

def on_plot_hover(event):
    # Iterating over each data member plotted
    for curve in plot.get_lines():
        # Searching which data member corresponds to current mouse position
        if curve.contains(event)[0]:
            print "over %s" % curve.get_gid()

fig.canvas.mpl_connect('motion_notify_event', on_plot_hover)           
plt.show()

Answer 3

mplcursors worked for me. mplcursors provides clickable annotation for matplotlib. It is heavily inspired from mpldatacursor (https://github.com/joferkington/mpldatacursor), with a much simplified API

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import mplcursors

data = np.outer(range(10), range(1, 5))

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
lines = ax.plot(data)
ax.set_title("Click somewhere on a line.\nRight-click to deselect.\n"
             "Annotations can be dragged.")

mplcursors.cursor(lines) # or just mplcursors.cursor()

plt.show()

Answer 4

mpld3 solve it for me. EDIT (CODE ADDED):

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import mpld3

fig, ax = plt.subplots(subplot_kw=dict(axisbg='#EEEEEE'))
N = 100

scatter = ax.scatter(np.random.normal(size=N),
                 np.random.normal(size=N),
                 c=np.random.random(size=N),
                 s=1000 * np.random.random(size=N),
                 alpha=0.3,
                 cmap=plt.cm.jet)
ax.grid(color='white', linestyle='solid')

ax.set_title("Scatter Plot (with tooltips!)", size=20)

labels = ['point {0}'.format(i + 1) for i in range(N)]
tooltip = mpld3.plugins.PointLabelTooltip(scatter, labels=labels)
mpld3.plugins.connect(fig, tooltip)

mpld3.show()

You can check this example

Answer 5

The other answers did not address my need for properly showing tooltips in a recent version of Jupyter inline matplotlib figure. This one works though:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import mplcursors
np.random.seed(42)

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.scatter(*np.random.random((2, 26)))
ax.set_title("Mouse over a point")
crs = mplcursors.cursor(ax,hover=True)

crs.connect("add", lambda sel: sel.annotation.set_text(
    'Point {},{}'.format(sel.target[0], sel.target[1])))
plt.show()

Leading to something like the following picture when going over a point with mouse:

Answer 6

I have made a multi-line annotation system to add to: https://stackoverflow.com/a/47166787/10302020. for the most up to date version: https://github.com/AidenBurgess/MultiAnnotationLineGraph

Simply change the data in the bottom section.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt


def update_annot(ind, line, annot, ydata):
    x, y = line.get_data()
    annot.xy = (x[ind["ind"][0]], y[ind["ind"][0]])
    # Get x and y values, then format them to be displayed
    x_values = " ".join(list(map(str, ind["ind"])))
    y_values = " ".join(str(ydata[n]) for n in ind["ind"])
    text = "{}, {}".format(x_values, y_values)
    annot.set_text(text)
    annot.get_bbox_patch().set_alpha(0.4)


def hover(event, line_info):
    line, annot, ydata = line_info
    vis = annot.get_visible()
    if event.inaxes == ax:
        # Draw annotations if cursor in right position
        cont, ind = line.contains(event)
        if cont:
            update_annot(ind, line, annot, ydata)
            annot.set_visible(True)
            fig.canvas.draw_idle()
        else:
            # Don't draw annotations
            if vis:
                annot.set_visible(False)
                fig.canvas.draw_idle()


def plot_line(x, y):
    line, = plt.plot(x, y, marker="o")
    # Annotation style may be changed here
    annot = ax.annotate("", xy=(0, 0), xytext=(-20, 20), textcoords="offset points",
                        bbox=dict(boxstyle="round", fc="w"),
                        arrowprops=dict(arrowstyle="->"))
    annot.set_visible(False)
    line_info = [line, annot, y]
    fig.canvas.mpl_connect("motion_notify_event",
                           lambda event: hover(event, line_info))


# Your data values to plot
x1 = range(21)
y1 = range(0, 21)
x2 = range(21)
y2 = range(0, 42, 2)
# Plot line graphs
fig, ax = plt.subplots()
plot_line(x1, y1)
plot_line(x2, y2)
plt.show()