Colorbar limits are not respecting set vmin/vmax in plt.contourf. How can I more explicitly set the colorbar limits?

Question

Getting a strange result when trying to adjust the data range when plotting using contourf

import matplotlib
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.cm as cm
im         


        

Answer 1

We can explicitly set the colorbar limits by sending a scalar mappable to colorbar.

CS = plt.contourf(X, Y, Z, 5, vmin = 0., vmax = 2., cmap=cm.coolwarm)
plt.title('Simplest default with labels')
m = plt.cm.ScalarMappable(cmap=cm.coolwarm)
m.set_array(Z)
m.set_clim(0., 2.)
plt.colorbar(m, boundaries=np.linspace(0, 2, 6))

Answer 2

First of all, the response, marked as answer, is erroneous (see my comments above), but helped me to come up with two other solutions.

As JulianBauer pointed out in a comment below, the function mlab.bivariate_normal used by the OP is not available any more. To provide functional code that produces output that can be compared with the other answers I am calling the following function, with the definition of bivariate_normal copied from the matplotlib repository:

def myfunction():

    def bivariate_normal(X, Y, sigmax=1.0, sigmay=1.0, mux=0.0, muy=0.0, sigmaxy=0.0):
        """copied from here: https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/blob/81e8154dbba54ac1607b21b22984cabf7a6598fa/lib/matplotlib/mlab.py#L1866"""
        Xmu = X-mux
        Ymu = Y-muy
        rho = sigmaxy/(sigmax*sigmay)
        z = Xmu**2/sigmax**2 + Ymu**2/sigmay**2 - 2*rho*Xmu*Ymu/(sigmax*sigmay)
        denom = 2*np.pi*sigmax*sigmay*np.sqrt(1-rho**2)
        return np.exp(-z/(2*(1-rho**2))) / denom

    delta = 0.025
    x = np.arange(-3.0, 3.0, delta)
    y = np.arange(-2.0, 2.0, delta)
    X, Y = np.meshgrid(x, y)
    Z1 = bivariate_normal(X, Y, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0)
    Z2 = bivariate_normal(X, Y, 1.5, 0.5, 1, 1)
    Z = 10.0 * (Z2 - Z1)
    return X,Y,Z

1. A simple and straight forward solution

Make use of the extend command while providing custom levels:

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

X,Y,Z = myfunction()

plt.figure()
plt.title('Simplest default with labels')
levels = np.linspace(0.0, 3.0, 7)
CS = plt.contourf(X, Y, Z, levels=levels, cmap=cm.coolwarm, extend='min')

colorbar = plt.colorbar(CS)

plt.show()

2. A more complicated solution

is provided in the answer above, though it needs to be adapted to specific cases and one can easily end up with a colorbar whose levels differs from those in the actual plot. I find this dangerous, so I attempted to wrap it up in a function that can safely be called in any context:

def clippedcolorbar(CS, **kwargs):
    from matplotlib.cm import ScalarMappable
    from numpy import arange, floor, ceil
    fig = CS.ax.get_figure()
    vmin = CS.get_clim()[0]
    vmax = CS.get_clim()[1]
    m = ScalarMappable(cmap=CS.get_cmap())
    m.set_array(CS.get_array())
    m.set_clim(CS.get_clim())
    step = CS.levels[1] - CS.levels[0]
    cliplower = CS.zmin<vmin
    clipupper = CS.zmax>vmax
    noextend = 'extend' in kwargs.keys() and kwargs['extend']=='neither'
    # set the colorbar boundaries
    boundaries = arange((floor(vmin/step)-1+1*(cliplower and noextend))*step, (ceil(vmax/step)+1-1*(clipupper and noextend))*step, step)
    kwargs['boundaries'] = boundaries
    # if the z-values are outside the colorbar range, add extend marker(s)
    # This behavior can be disabled by providing extend='neither' to the function call
    if not('extend' in kwargs.keys()) or kwargs['extend'] in ['min','max']:
        extend_min = cliplower or ( 'extend' in kwargs.keys() and kwargs['extend']=='min' )
        extend_max = clipupper or ( 'extend' in kwargs.keys() and kwargs['extend']=='max' )
        if extend_min and extend_max:
            kwargs['extend'] = 'both'
        elif extend_min:
            kwargs['extend'] = 'min'
        elif extend_max:
            kwargs['extend'] = 'max'
    return fig.colorbar(m, **kwargs)

The main commands in the function correspond to what kilojoules proposes in his/her answer, but more lines are required to avoid all the explicit and potentially erroneous assignments by extracting all information from the contourf object.

Usage:

The OP asks for levels from 0 to 3. The darkest blue represents values below 0, so I find an extend-marker useful.

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

X,Y,Z = myfunction()

plt.figure()
plt.title('Simplest default with labels')
CS = plt.contourf(X, Y, Z, levels=6, vmin=0.0, vmax=3.0, cmap=cm.coolwarm)

colorbar = clippedcolorbar(CS)

plt.show()

The extend marker can be disabled by calling clippedcolorbar(CS, extend='neither') instead of clippedcolorbar(CS).