Save Matplotlib Drawing as TIFF

Question

Does anyone know how to save a Matplotlib figure as * .tiff? It seems that this format is not supported in Python, while logs quite often ask for this format.

I add the minimum code:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

# fig setup
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(5,5), dpi=300)
ax = fig.gca(projection='3d')
ax.set_xlim([-1,1])
ax.set_ylim([-1,1])
ax.set_zlim([-1,1])
ax.axes.xaxis.set_ticklabels([])
ax.axes.yaxis.set_ticklabels([])
ax.axes.zaxis.set_ticklabels([])

# draw a surface
xx, yy = np.meshgrid(range(-1,2), range(-1,2))
zz = np.zeros(shape=(3,3))
ax.plot_surface(xx, yy, zz, color='#c8c8c8', alpha=0.3)
ax.plot_surface(xx, zz, yy, color='#b6b6ff', alpha=0.2)

# draw a point
ax.scatter([0],[0],[0], color='b', s=200)

It works:

fig.savefig('3dPlot.pdf')

But this is not so:

fig.savefig('3dPlot.tif')

Answer 1

It's great! Thanks ot Martin Evans . However, for those who would like to do this in Python3.x, small corrections (since the module is cStringIOnot available, and I would prefer to use BytesIO)

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

from PIL import Image
from io import BytesIO

# fig setup
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(5,5), dpi=300)
ax = fig.gca(projection='3d')
ax.set_xlim([-1,1])
ax.set_ylim([-1,1])
ax.set_zlim([-1,1])
ax.axes.xaxis.set_ticklabels([])
ax.axes.yaxis.set_ticklabels([])
ax.axes.zaxis.set_ticklabels([])

# draw a point
ax.scatter([0],[0],[0], color='b', s=200)

# save figure
# (1) save the image in memory in PNG format
png1 = BytesIO()
fig.savefig(png1, format='png')

# (2) load this image into PIL
png2 = Image.open(png1)

# (3) save as TIFF
png2.save('3dPlot.tiff')
png1.close()

Answer 2

Python PIL TIFF:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

from PIL import Image
import io

# fig setup
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(5,5), dpi=300)
ax = fig.gca(projection='3d')
ax.set_xlim([-1,1])
ax.set_ylim([-1,1])
ax.set_zlim([-1,1])
ax.axes.xaxis.set_ticklabels([])
ax.axes.yaxis.set_ticklabels([])
ax.axes.zaxis.set_ticklabels([])

# draw a surface
xx, yy = np.meshgrid(range(-1,2), range(-1,2))
zz = np.zeros(shape=(3,3))
ax.plot_surface(xx, yy, zz, color='#c8c8c8', alpha=0.3)
ax.plot_surface(xx, zz, yy, color='#b6b6ff', alpha=0.2)

# draw a point
ax.scatter([0],[0],[0], color='b', s=200)

#fig.savefig('3dPlot.pdf')

# Save the image in memory in PNG format
png1 = io.BytesIO()
fig.savefig(png1, format="png")

# Load this image into PIL
png2 = Image.open(png1)

# Save as TIFF
png2.save("3dPlot.tiff")
png1.close()

---

Python 2.x, cStringIO BytesIO :

import cStringIO

# Replace the BytesIO() call with
png1 = cStringIO.StringIO()

Answer 3

Matplotlib has supported tif since version 1.1, but support is optional and not obvious. As long as you have a pillow installed , you can save in tif, as you can save in any other format. So your example would be simple:

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
import PIL # not necessary but mustn't fail

# fig setup
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(5,5), dpi=300)
ax = fig.gca(projection='3d')
ax.set_xlim([-1,1])
ax.set_ylim([-1,1])
ax.set_zlim([-1,1])
ax.axes.xaxis.set_ticklabels([])
ax.axes.yaxis.set_ticklabels([])
ax.axes.zaxis.set_ticklabels([])

# draw a surface
xx, yy = np.meshgrid(range(-1,2), range(-1,2))
zz = np.zeros(shape=(3,3))
ax.plot_surface(xx, yy, zz, color='#c8c8c8', alpha=0.3)
ax.plot_surface(xx, zz, yy, color='#b6b6ff', alpha=0.2)

# draw a point
ax.scatter([0],[0],[0], color='b', s=200)

fig.savefig('3dPlot.tif')