Colorbar positioning in Matplotlib - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Colorbar positioning

📖 Scenario: You are creating a simple heatmap to visualize temperature data across a small grid. To make the heatmap easier to understand, you want to add a colorbar that shows the temperature scale.

🎯 Goal: Build a heatmap using matplotlib and add a colorbar positioned on the right side of the heatmap.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a 2D list called temperature_data with exact values

Create a matplotlib figure and axis

Plot the heatmap using imshow with the temperature_data

Add a colorbar positioned on the right side of the heatmap

Print the colorbar's orientation to confirm it is vertical

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Colorbars help people understand the meaning of colors in heatmaps, such as temperature or intensity in scientific data.

💼 Career

Data scientists and analysts often use colorbars in visualizations to communicate data clearly to others.

1

Create the temperature data

Create a 2D list called temperature_data with these exact values: [[22, 24, 19], [20, 23, 21], [18, 22, 20]]

Matplotlib

# Create the temperature_data list with the given values
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use square brackets to create a list of lists. Each inner list is a row of temperatures.

2

Set up the matplotlib figure and axis

Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt and create a figure and axis using plt.subplots(). Store the axis in a variable called ax.

Matplotlib

temperature_data = [[22, 24, 19], [20, 23, 21], [18, 22, 20]]
# Import matplotlib.pyplot as plt and create figure and ax
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use import matplotlib.pyplot as plt and then fig, ax = plt.subplots().

3

Plot the heatmap and add a colorbar on the right

Use ax.imshow(temperature_data) to plot the heatmap and save the result in a variable called heatmap. Then add a colorbar on the right side of the heatmap using fig.colorbar(heatmap, ax=ax, orientation='vertical') and save it in a variable called cbar.

Matplotlib

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

temperature_data = [[22, 24, 19], [20, 23, 21], [18, 22, 20]]

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
# Plot heatmap and add colorbar on the right
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use ax.imshow() to plot and fig.colorbar() with orientation='vertical' to add the colorbar on the right.

4

Print the colorbar orientation

Print the orientation of the colorbar using print(cbar.orientation) to confirm it is vertical.

Matplotlib

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

temperature_data = [[22, 24, 19], [20, 23, 21], [18, 22, 20]]

fig, ax = plt.subplots()

heatmap = ax.imshow(temperature_data)
cbar = fig.colorbar(heatmap, ax=ax, orientation='vertical')
# Print the colorbar orientation
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use print(cbar.orientation) to see the orientation of the colorbar.