Fixing histogram size behavior within grid of graphics

Question

I'm trying to put the finishing touches on a grid of figures and could use some help. I'm trying to keep the figures as clean as possible, so I only want frame ticks and labels on the edge figures. However, when I do this, the figures on the far left and right are shrunk relative to the middle ones. I'd love to know how to fix this.

Here's the code and output.

(*set up scaling of population sizes*)
iVals = {1/2, 2, 8, 16};
(create simulations )
Table[
  Ne = 8i;
  initialCount  = Ne; (allele frequency = initialCount/(2 Ne) *)
tMax = 5;
  nPops = 100;
driftMatrix[i] = 
   Table[
     (each row is the distribuiton of p at given generation )
 NestList[
    RandomInteger[BinomialDistribution[2 Ne, #/(2 Ne)]] &amp;, 
    initialCount, tMax + 1]/(2 Ne) // N, {i, nPops}] // 
Transpose,

{i, iVals}];
(set up the bins)
binWidth = {0.05};
binBoundaries = Range[ 0 - binWidth/2, 1 + binWidth/2, binWidth];
bin = binWidth;
(choose which time steps to plot )
tSteps = 10;
tVals = Range[0, 5];
rowVals = tVals + 1;
(make the plots )
plots = Table[
    Table[
     xTicks = If[j == Max[rowVals], Range[0, 1, 0.25], None];
     lTicks = 
      If[i == Min[iVals], {{10, Style["0.5", Smaller]}} , None];
     rTicks = 
      If[i == Max[iVals], {{10, Style["0.5", Smaller]}} , None];
     rFrame = If[i == Max[iVals], True , False];
     Histogram[
      driftMatrix[i][[j]], binBoundaries, "PDF", 
      PlotRange -> {{0, 1}, {0, 12}},
      Frame -> {{True, rFrame}, {True, False}},
      FrameTicks -> { 
        {lTicks, rTicks},
        {xTicks, None }
        },
      AspectRatio -> 1/3
      ], {j, rowVals}], {i, iVals}] // Transpose;
(combine plots into a Grid)
xlabels = 
  Text[Style[#, Medium]] & /@ (Join[8*iVals, {"Generation"}]);
ylabels = Text[Style[#, Medium]] & /@ (tVals);
Show[
 Labeled[
  Grid[
   Join[
    {xlabels},
    Transpose[
     Join[Transpose[plots], {ylabels}]
     ]
    ], Spacings -> {1, 0}
   ],
  {"Population Size", "Bin Frequency", 
   "Frequency of bw75 Allele"}, {Top, Left, Bottom},
  RotateLabel -> True],
 ImageSize -> 12*72
 ]

It's subtle, but if you look you'll see that the frame lines of the left and right most plots don't match up with the interior ones.

try if adding the option ImageSize -> 1 -> 160 to Histogram gives what you need. — kglr, Feb 11 '21 at 05:30
@kglr Thanks for both suggestions. The first works almost perfectly, but there's actually an extremely slight difference in the length of the x dimension between the left column and the rest of the columns. Could you please take a minute and explain how the use of two replacement rules affects things and how you concluded to use 160 in the second replacement? I haven't had time to look at PlotGrid, but it seems like a very useful function to add to my init.nb file. — mikemtnbikes, Feb 12 '21 at 14:38

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Feb 13 '21 at 01:40

The form ImageSize -> a -> b (still undocumented) makes a user units correspond to b printer's points. (See also: this q/a)

Play with different values of b to have plots fit into the containing object without being clipped.

sizeinprinterpoints = 165;
plots = Table[Histogram[driftMatrix[i][[j]], binBoundaries, "PDF",
     PlotRange -> {{0, 1}, {0, 12}},
     Frame -> {{True, True}, {True, False}},
     FrameStyle -> {{Automatic, i /. {Max[iVals] -> Automatic, _ -> White}}, 
        {Automatic,  Automatic}}, 
     FrameTicks -> {Table[i /. {m[iVals] -> {{10, Style["0.5", Smaller]}}, _ -> None}, 
          {m, {Min, Max}}],
       {j /. {Max[rowVals] -> Range[0, 1, 0.25], _ -> None}, None}},
     AspectRatio -> 1/3,
     ImageSize -> 1 -> sizeinprinterpoints],
   {j, rowVals}, {i, iVals}];
xlabels = Text[Style[#, Medium]] & /@ (Join[8 iVals, {"Generation"}]);
ylabels = Text[Style[#, Medium]] & /@ (tVals);
Framed @ Labeled[Grid[Join[{xlabels}, Transpose[Join[Transpose[plots], {ylabels}]]]], 
  {"Population Size", "Bin Frequency", "Frequency of bw75 Allele"},
  {Top, Left, Bottom}, RotateLabel -> True, ImageSize -> 12*72]

If you wish to specify the size in inches you can use sizeinprinterpoints = 72 2.3 to get (almost) the same picture.

With sizeinprinterpoints = 100; we get

Fixing histogram size behavior within grid of graphics

1 Answers1