What is the purpose of plt.rcparams in matplotlib?

plt.rcParams is a dictionary in Matplotlib that is used for setting the default parameters for plotting.

By changing the values of plt.rcParams, one can alter the default style, font, line width, image size, etc. of the plot. This allows for avoiding the repetitive setting of the same parameters when drawing plots, while also facilitating the unified management of the overall plotting style.

For example, you can change the size of the generated figures by setting plt.rcParams[“figure.figsize”] and change the font style in the figures by setting plt.rcParams[“font.family”].

Example code:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

# 修改图形尺寸为(8, 6)
plt.rcParams["figure.figsize"] = (8, 6)

# 修改字体样式为"Arial"
plt.rcParams["font.family"] = "Arial"

# 绘制图形
plt.plot([1, 2, 3, 4], [1, 4, 9, 16])
plt.xlabel("x")
plt.ylabel("y")
plt.title("Title")
plt.show()

By using plt.rcParams, it is easy to globally set the default styles for plotting, which improves efficiency and consistency in plotting.