python - How to map number to color using matplotlib's colormap?

Question

Consider a variable x containing a floating point number. I want to use matplotlib's colormaps to map this number to a color, but not plot anything. Basically, I want to be able to choose the colormap with mpl.cm.autumn for example, use mpl.colors.Normalize(vmin = -20, vmax = 10) to set the range, and then map x to the corresponding color. But I really don't get the documentation of mpl.cm, so if anyone could give me a hint.

Answer 1

It's as simple as cm.hot(0.3), which returns (0.82400814813704837, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0).

A full working program could read

import matplotlib.cm as cm

print(cm.hot(0.3))

If you also want to have the normalizer, use

import matplotlib as mpl
import matplotlib.cm as cm

norm = mpl.colors.Normalize(vmin=-20, vmax=10)
cmap = cm.hot
x = 0.3

m = cm.ScalarMappable(norm=norm, cmap=cmap)
print(m.to_rgba(x))