Python Matplotlib rectangular binning

I've got a series of (x,y) values that I want to plot a 2d histogram of using python's matplotlib. Using hexbin, I get something like this: But I'm looking for something like this: Example Code: ``` from matplotlib import pyplot as plt import random foo = lambda : random.gauss(0.0,1.0) x = [foo() for i in xrange(5000)] y = [foo() for i in xrange(5000)] pairs = zip(x,y) #using hexbin I supply the x,y series and it does the binning for me hexfig = plt.figure() hexplt = hexfig.add_subplot(1,1,1) hexplt.hexbin(x, y, gridsize = 20) #to use imshow I have to bin the data myself def histBin(pairsData,xbins,ybins=None): if (ybins == None): ybins = xbins xdata, ydata = zip(*pairsData) xmin,xmax = min(xdata),max(xdata) xwidth = xmax-xmin ymin,ymax = min(ydata),max(ydata) ywidth = ymax-ymin def xbin(xval): xbin = int(xbins*(xval-xmin)/xwidth) return max(min(xbin,xbins-1),0) def ybin(yval): ybin = int(ybins*(yval-ymin)/ywidth) return max(min(ybin,ybins-1),0) hist = [[0 for x in xrange(xbins)] for y in xrange(ybins)] for x,y in pairsData: hist[ybin(y)][xbin(x)] += 1 extent = (xmin,xmax,ymin,ymax) return hist,extent #plot using imshow imdata,extent = histBin(pairs,20) imfig = plt.figure() implt = imfig.add_subplot(1,1,1) implt.imshow(imdata,extent = extent, interpolation = 'nearest') plt.draw() plt.show() ``` It seems like there should already be a way to do this without writing my own "binning" method and using imshow.