Specify figure size in centimeter in matplotlib

Question

I am wondering whether you can specify the size of a figure in matplotlib in centimeter. At the moment I write:

def cm2inch(value):     return value/2.54  fig = plt.figure(figsize=(cm2inch(12.8), cm2inch(9.6))) 

But is there a native approach?

Answer 1

This is not an answer to a question ''Is there a native way?'', but I think, that there is a more elegant way:

def cm2inch(*tupl):     inch = 2.54     if isinstance(tupl[0], tuple):         return tuple(i/inch for i in tupl[0])     else:         return tuple(i/inch for i in tupl) 

Then one can issue plt.figure(figsize=cm2inch(12.8, 9.6)), which I think is a much cleaner way. The implementation also allows us to use cm2inch((12.8, 9.6)), which I personally do not prefer, but some people may do.

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EDIT: Even though there is no way of doing this natively at the moment, I found a discussion here.

Answer 2

I have submitted a pull request to the matplotlib repo on GitHub to include set_size_cm and get_size_cm features for figures (https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib/pull/5104)

If it is accepted, that should allow you to use a native approach to size-setting in centimeters.