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UltraPlot v1.71: Ridgelines and Smarter Legends ✨

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@cvanelteren cvanelteren released this 16 Jan 23:15
· 23 commits to main since this release
v1.71.0
9906802

This release focuses on two user-facing improvements: a new ridgeline plot type and more flexible figure-level legend placement.

Under the hood, import-time work shifted from eager loading to lazy loading,
cutting startup overhead by about 98%.

Highlights

  • Ridgeline (joyplot) support for stacked distribution comparisons.
  • Figure-level legends now accept ref= for span inference and consistent placement.
  • External context mode for integration-heavy workflows where UltraPlot should
    defer on-the-fly guide creation.
  • New Copernicus journal width presets to standardize publication sizing.
  • Faster startup via lazy-loading of top-level imports.
snippet 
from pathlib import Path

import numpy as np
import ultraplot as uplt

outdir = Path("release_assets/v1.71.0")
outdir.mkdir(parents=True, exist_ok=True)

Ridgeline plots

Ridgeline plots (joyplots) are now built-in. This example uses KDE ridges with
a colormap and overlap control.

ridgeline
snippet 
rng = np.random.default_rng(12)
data = [rng.normal(loc=mu, scale=0.9, size=1200) for mu in range(5)]
labels = [f"Group {i + 1}" for i in range(len(data))]

fig, ax = uplt.subplots(refwidth="11cm", refaspect=1.6)
ax.ridgeline(
    data,
    labels=labels,
    cmap="viridis",
    overlap=0.65,
    alpha=0.8,
    linewidth=1.1,
)
ax.format(
    xlabel="Value",
    ylabel="Group",
    title="Ridgeline plot with colormap",
)
fig.savefig(outdir / "ridgeline.png", dpi=200)

Figure-level legend placement with ref=

Figure legends can now infer their span from a reference axes or axes group.
This removes the need to manually calculate span, rows, or cols for many
layouts.

legend_ref
snippet 
x = np.linspace(0, 2 * np.pi, 256)

layout = [[1, 2, 3], [1, 4, 5]]
fig, axs = uplt.subplots(layout)
cycle = uplt.Cycle("bmh")
for idx, axi in enumerate(axs):
    axi.plot(
        x,
        np.sin((idx + 1) * x),
        color=cycle.get_next()["color"],
        label=f"sin({idx+1}x)",
    )
axs.format(xlabel="x", ylabel=r"sin($\alpha x)")
# Place legend of the first 2 axes on the bottom of the last plot
fig.legend(ax=axs[:2], ref=axs[-1], loc="bottom", ncols=2, frame=False)
# Place legend of the last 2 plots on the bottom of the first column
fig.legend(ax=axs[-2:], ref=axs[:, 1], loc="left", ncols=1, frame=False)
# Collect all labels in a singular legend
fig.legend(ax=axs, loc="bottom", frameon=0)
fig.savefig(outdir / "legend_ref.png", dpi=200)
Assets 2
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