Invert image displayed by imshow in matplotlib

Question

I wanted the imshow() function in matplotlib.pyplot to display images the opposite way, i.e upside down. Is there a simple way to do this?

score 221 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 06 '11 at 06:24

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Specify the keyword argument origin='lower' or origin='upper' in your call to imshow.

answered Dec 06 '11 at 06:24

wim

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why does default differ on different machines? Is there a way to set the default? Thanks for this answer nonetheless, in the past I tried to fix this by using matrix flips and stuff. This is much easier! – Milla Well Mar 04 '13 at 11:49
probably because of different versions of pyplot (they changed the convention somewhere from 0,0 being top-left to bottom-left) – wim Mar 04 '13 at 12:28
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What if you want to move it clockwise. – Rahmi Pruitt Nov 25 '19 at 20:44
@RahmiPruitt See [Matplotlib rotate image file by X degrees](https://stackoverflow.com/q/31401812/674039) – wim Mar 11 '20 at 15:39

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 17 '21 at 22:56

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You can use the extent argument. For example, if X values range from -10 and 10 and Y values range from -5 to 5, you should pass extent=(-10,10,-5,5) to imshow().

answered May 17 '21 at 22:56

Nbarjest

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score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 06 '21 at 13:25

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Use ax.invert_yaxis() to invert the y-axis, or ax.invert_xaxis() to invert the x-axis.

answered Aug 06 '21 at 13:25

Nirmal

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score -15 · Answer 4 · answered Jul 11 '16 at 19:51

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add .T after the data you want to plot

plt.imshow(data.T)

This will "transpose" the data

answered Jul 11 '16 at 19:51

Ben Pickering

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This assumes that the data being shown is a Numpy array and not a list or other structure. Specifically by calling `.T` means calling `numpy.ndarray.T` – RegularlyScheduledProgramming Sep 13 '16 at 15:55
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Transpose is a diagonal flip. Users wanted a vertical flip. – wim Nov 22 '16 at 15:57

Invert image displayed by imshow in matplotlib

4 Answers4