{"id":15245,"date":"2021-04-27T19:19:02","date_gmt":"2021-04-27T19:19:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.askpython.com\/?p=15245"},"modified":"2021-04-27T19:24:54","modified_gmt":"2021-04-27T19:24:54","slug":"animated-plots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.askpython.com\/python-modules\/matplotlib\/animated-plots","title":{"rendered":"Python Plot: Create Animated Plots in Python"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Till now you must have seen basic matplotlib plots<\/a>, but the same matplotlib module<\/a> can be used to have animated plots<\/strong> as well! Let’s see how to build the same!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Importing necessary modules<\/h2>\n\n\n
\nimport numpy as np\nimport matplotlib.pyplot as plt\nimport matplotlib.animation as animation\nimport random\nfrom itertools import count\nfrom IPython import display\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
The table below shows each module and their requirement:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Module Name<\/td>Requirement<\/td><\/tr>
Numpy module<\/a><\/td>Used to create a dataset for the plotting.<\/td><\/tr>
Matplotlib module<\/a><\/td>To plot the plots required<\/td><\/tr>
matplotlib.animation<\/td>To provide functionalities for the animated plots<\/td><\/tr>
random<\/a><\/td>To generate random points for random intervals intially<\/td><\/tr>
count module<\/td>To generate a series of consecutive numbers<\/td><\/tr>
display module<\/td>To display the videos of the animated plots<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table>
Name and Requirement of various modules<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Creating a dataset for the animated plots in Python<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
To create the dataset we create two lists namely x<\/code> and y<\/code> , where x stores the x-coordinates and y stores the y-coordinates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now x-coordinates are consecutive numbers. We will use the cound module that does the counting of numbers starting from 0<\/code> after creating a count iterator using the count<\/code> function. Also to access the next number we make use of the next<\/code> function. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the y-coordinates, we will be using the random<\/code> module to choose any random integer<\/a> between two integers. The code below implements the same which includes an animate<\/code> function which does the incrementation in the values:<\/p>\n\n\n
\nx=[]\ny=[]\ni = count()\ndef animate(j):\n    x.append(next(i))\n    y.append(random.randint(0, 10))\n    plt.plot(x,y)\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
Creating the animation object<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The next step involves creating an object named animation_1<\/code>. To implement the animate<\/code> function on repeat after a certain intervals of time we make use of the FuncAnimation<\/code> which takes a few parameters which are mentioned below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
  1. plt.gcf() : To take the function mentioned as the next parameter as the ‘current function’.<\/li>
  2. Function name: In this case it’s animate<\/strong>.<\/li>
  3. interval: Set the time after which the function is repeated. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n
    \nanimation_1 = animation.FuncAnimation(plt.gcf(),animate,interval=1000)\nplt.show()\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
    If you are using python IDLE<\/code> , a plot will automatically generate. But, in case you are using jupyter notebook<\/code> , even after using the plt.show()<\/code> function after the code, nothing will get printed as an output. <\/strong>To avoid this one needs to covert the video formed in HTML form which is mentioned in the next section.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
    Coverting the animated plot to HTML video (For Jupyter Notebook users)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
    We first need to convert the animation created to html5 video which is done in line number 1<\/code> in the code shown below. The line number 2<\/code> creates an HTML code to display the html5 video. Lastly line number 3<\/code> displays the html code we generated to display the video.<\/p>\n\n\n
    \nvideo_1 = animation_1.to_html5_video()\nhtml_code_1 = display.HTML(video_1)\ndisplay.display(html_code_1)\nplt.tight_layout()\nplt.show()\n<\/pre><\/div>\n\n\n
    Later in line number 4<\/code> and 5<\/code> we can simply plot the points. The output of the code results in something which is shown below. Your plot can be different than mine as the points are generated randomly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n