"""
hexbin is an axes method or pyplot function that is essentially a
pcolor of a 2-D histogram with hexagonal cells.
"""

import numpy as np
import  matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.mlab as mlab

delta = 0.025
x = y = np.arange(-3.0, 3.0, delta)
X, Y = np.meshgrid(x, y)
Z1 = mlab.bivariate_normal(X, Y, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0)
Z2 = mlab.bivariate_normal(X, Y, 1.5, 0.5, 1, 1)
Z = Z2-Z1  # difference of Gaussians

x = X.ravel()
y = Y.ravel()
z = Z.ravel()

if 1:
    # make some points 20 times more common than others, but same mean
    xcond = (-1 < x) & (x < 1)
    ycond = (-2 < y) & (y < 0)
    cond = xcond & ycond
    xnew = x[cond]
    ynew = y[cond]
    znew = z[cond]
    for i in range(20):
        x = np.hstack((x,xnew))
        y = np.hstack((y,ynew))
        z = np.hstack((z,znew))

xmin = x.min()
xmax = x.max()
ymin = y.min()
ymax = y.max()

gridsize=30

plt.subplot(211)
plt.hexbin(x,y, C=z, gridsize=gridsize, marginals=True)
plt.axis([xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax])
cb = plt.colorbar()
cb.set_label('mean value')


plt.subplot(212)
plt.hexbin(x,y, gridsize=gridsize)
plt.axis([xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax])
cb = plt.colorbar()
cb.set_label('N observations')

plt.show()