Set autoscale limits on plot to have buffer around all points

Question

I would like to plot a set of points using pyplot in matplotlib but have none of the points be on the edge of my axes. The autoscale (or something) sets the xlim

Answer 1

A similar question was posed to the matplotlib-users list earlier this year. The most promising solution involves implementing a Locator (based on MaxNLocator in this case) to override MaxNLocator.view_limits.

Answer 2

@askewchan I just succesfully achieved how to change matplotlib settings by editing matplotlibrc configuration file and running python directly from terminal. Don't know the reason yet, but matplotlibrc is not working when I run python from spyder3 (my IDE). Just follow steps here matplotlib.org/users/customizing.html.

1) Solution one (default for all plots)

Try put this in matplotlibrc and you will see the buffer increase:

axes.xmargin        : 0.1  # x margin.  See `axes.Axes.margins`
axes.ymargin        : 0.1  # y margin See `axes.Axes.margins`

Values must be between 0 and 1.

Obs.: Due to bugs, scale is not correctly working yet. It'll be fixed for matplotlib 1.5 (mine is 1.4.3 yet...). More info:

• axes.xmargin/ymargin rcParam behaves differently than pyplot.margins() #2298
• Better auto-selection of axis limits #4891

2) Solution two (individually for each plot inside the code)

There is also the margins function (for put directly in the code). Example:

import numpy as np
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt 
t = np.linspace(-6,6,1000)
plt.plot(t,np.sin(t))
plt.margins(x=0.1, y=0.1)
plt.savefig('plot.png')

Obs.: Here scale is working (0.1 will increase 10% of buffer before and after x-range and y-range).