Matlab® has a great feature where it allows you to update a figure. You can
simply call drawnow and have your figure update. This is nice if you're
running a simulation and want to see the results every iteration. It'd sure be
nice if Python/matplotlib had a similar feature to update the plot each
iteration. This feature adds that functionality to matplotlib.
Example:
Usage:
from drawnow import drawnow
x = zeros((N,N))
ion() # enable interactivity, can be default
figure() # drawnow needs figure to clear
def function_to_draw_figure():
#figure() # don't call, otherwise new window opened
imshow(x) # python's global scope
#show() # don't call show()!
for i in arange(x):
x.flat[i] = 1
drawnow(function_to_draw_figure)If you want to wait for confirmation after update or the option to drop into a
debugger, call drawnow(function_to_draw_figure, confirm=True).
If you only want to show the figure once, call
drawnow(function_to_draw_figure, show_once=True)
Two options:
- Download this repository and run
python setup.py install. - Run
pip install drawnow.
This does require small changes to your code. All it should really amount
to is moving figure(); plot(...); show() inside a function; not much.