How can I set the y axis range of the second subplot to e.g. [0,1000] ? The FFT plot of my data (a column in a text file) results in a (inf.?) spike so that the actual data is not visible.

pylab.ylim([0,1000])

has no effect, unfortunately. This is the whole script:

# based on http://www.swharden.com/blog/2009-01-21-signal-filtering-with-python/
import numpy, scipy, pylab, random

xs = []
rawsignal = []
with open("test.dat", 'r') as f:
      for line in f:
            if line[0] != '#' and len(line) > 0:
                xs.append( int( line.split()[0] ) )
                rawsignal.append( int( line.split()[1] ) )

h, w = 3, 1
pylab.figure(figsize=(12,9))
pylab.subplots_adjust(hspace=.7)

pylab.subplot(h,w,1)
pylab.title("Signal")
pylab.plot(xs,rawsignal)

pylab.subplot(h,w,2)
pylab.title("FFT")
fft = scipy.fft(rawsignal)
#~ pylab.axis([None,None,0,1000])
pylab.ylim([0,1000])
pylab.plot(abs(fft))

pylab.savefig("SIG.png",dpi=200)
pylab.show()

Other improvements are also appreciated!

You have pylab.ylim:

pylab.ylim([0,1000])

Note: The command has to be executed after the plot!

Using axes objects is a great approach for this. It helps if you want to interact with multiple figures and sub-plots. To add and manipulate the axes objects directly:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(12,9))

signal_axes = fig.add_subplot(211)
signal_axes.plot(xs,rawsignal)

fft_axes = fig.add_subplot(212)
fft_axes.set_title("FFT")
fft_axes.set_autoscaley_on(False)
fft_axes.set_ylim([0,1000])
fft = scipy.fft(rawsignal)
fft_axes.plot(abs(fft))

plt.show()

Sometimes you really want to set the axes limits before you plot the data. In that case, you can set the “autoscaling” feature of the Axes or AxesSubplot object. The functions of interest are set_autoscale_on, set_autoscalex_on, and set_autoscaley_on.

In your case, you want to freeze the y axis’ limits, but allow the x axis to expand to accommodate your data. Therefore, you want to change the autoscaley_on property to False. Here is a modified version of the FFT subplot snippet from your code:

fft_axes = pylab.subplot(h,w,2)
pylab.title("FFT")
fft = scipy.fft(rawsignal)
pylab.ylim([0,1000])
fft_axes.set_autoscaley_on(False)
pylab.plot(abs(fft))

If you know the exact axis you want, then

pylab.ylim([0,1000])

works as answered previously. But if you want a more flexible axis to fit your exact data, as I did when I found this question, then set axis limit to be the length of your dataset. If your dataset is fft as in the question, then add this after your plot command:

length = (len(fft)) pylab.ylim([0,length])

If you have multiple subplots, i.e.

fig, ax = plt.subplots(4, 2)

You can use the same y limits for all of them. It gets limits of y ax from first plot.

plt.setp(ax, ylim=ax[0,0].get_ylim())