Hi,

I'm having hard time understanding some of the differences between functions 
used to plot color patches (not sure what to call them).

I'm trying to fill a curve with a nonuniform color patch (like fill or 
fill_between but the color in the patch varies). I've attached code that almost 
does what I want; my question concerns the color patch (which is created by the 
call to plt.pcolor in the code below). I'd like to have nonuniform grid spacing 
in the color values, and also shading (i.e. interpolation of color between 
points). Here's what I understand:

pcolor: allows nonuniform grid spacing, but it doesn't do shading.

imshow: allows color shading, but requires uniform spacing

pcolormesh: allows color interpolation and nonuniform grid spacing

pcolormesh seems like the ideal candidate, but when I replace pcolor with 
pcolormesh (code commented out below pcolor call), the path doesn't get clipped 
by set_clip_path (but no errors are raised); in other words, the color shading 
fills the entire plot area. Is this a bug?

Is there a way of making this plot work that I've overlooked?

Thanks!
-Tony


#~~~~ example code

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

def plot_filled_curve(x, y, c):
    """Plot curve filled with color patch
    
    Parameters
    ----------
    x, y : arrays
        points describing curve
    c : array
        value of describing color gradient filling the curve. Must match the
        lengths of `x` and `y`.
    """
    # add end points so that fill extends to the x-axis
    x_closed = np.concatenate([x[:1], x, x[-1:]])
    y_closed = np.concatenate([[0], y, [0]])
    # fill between doesn't work here b/c it returns a PolyCollection, plus it
    # adds the lower half of the plot by adding a Rect with a border
    patch, = plt.fill(x_closed, y_closed, facecolor='none')
    X, Y = np.meshgrid(x, [0, y.max()])
    # take average since C specifies color in between X, Y points
    C = [((c[:-1] + c[1:]) / 2.)]
    im = plt.pcolor(X, Y, C, cmap=plt.cm.gray, vmin=0, vmax=1)
    # C = np.vstack((c, c))
    # im = plt.pcolormesh(X, Y, C,
    #                     cmap=plt.cm.gray, vmin=0, vmax=1, shading='gouraud')
    im.set_clip_path(patch)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    x0 = .45
    x = np.linspace(0, 1, 11)
    x = np.insert(x, (5, 5), (x0,)*2)
    y = np.hstack(([2]*7, 2*np.linspace(0.9, 0, 6)**2))
    c = np.hstack(([0]*6, [1], np.linspace(0.9,0,6)))
    plot_filled_curve(x, y, c)
    plt.show()


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