How do I plot in real-time in a while loop using m

Question

I am trying to plot some data from a camera in real time using OpenCV. However, the real-time plotting (using matplotlib) doesn't seem to be working.

I've isolated the problem into this simple example:

fig = plt.figure()
plt.axis([0, 1000, 0, 1])

i = 0
x = list()
y = list()

while i < 1000:
    temp_y = np.random.random()
    x.append(i)
    y.append(temp_y)
    plt.scatter(i, temp_y)
    i += 1
    plt.show()

I would expect this example to plot 1000 points individually. What actually happens is that the window pops up with the first point showing (ok with that), then waits for the loop to finish before it populates the rest of the graph.

Any thoughts why I am not seeing points populated one at a time?

Answer 1

show is probably not the best choice for this. What I would do is use pyplot.draw() instead. You also might want to include a small time delay (e.g., time.sleep(0.05)) in the loop so that you can see the plots happening. If I make these changes to your example it works for me and I see each point appearing one at a time.

Answer 2

The top (and many other) answers were built upon plt.pause(), but that was an old way of animating the plot in matplotlib. It is not only slow, but also causes focus to be grabbed upon each update (I had a hard time stopping the plotting python process).

TL;DR: you may want to use matplotlib.animation (as mentioned in documentation).

After digging around various answers and pieces of code, this in fact proved to be a smooth way of drawing incoming data infinitely for me.

Here is my code for a quick start. It plots current time with a random number in [0, 100) every 200ms infinitely, while also handling auto rescaling of the view:

from datetime import datetime
from matplotlib import pyplot
from matplotlib.animation import FuncAnimation
from random import randrange

x_data, y_data = [], []

figure = pyplot.figure()
line, = pyplot.plot_date(x_data, y_data, '-')

def update(frame):
    x_data.append(datetime.now())
    y_data.append(randrange(0, 100))
    line.set_data(x_data, y_data)
    figure.gca().relim()
    figure.gca().autoscale_view()
    return line,

animation = FuncAnimation(figure, update, interval=200)

pyplot.show()

You can also explore blit for even better performance as in FuncAnimation documentation.

Answer 3

I know I'm a bit late to answer this question. Nevertheless, I've made some code a while ago to plot live graphs, that I would like to share:

###################################################################
#                                                                 #
#                     PLOTTING A LIVE GRAPH                       #
#                  ----------------------------                   #
#            EMBED A MATPLOTLIB ANIMATION INSIDE YOUR             #
#            OWN GUI!                                             #
#                                                                 #
###################################################################


import sys
import os
from PyQt4 import QtGui
from PyQt4 import QtCore
import functools
import numpy as np
import random as rd
import matplotlib
matplotlib.use("Qt4Agg")
from matplotlib.figure import Figure
from matplotlib.animation import TimedAnimation
from matplotlib.lines import Line2D
from matplotlib.backends.backend_qt4agg import FigureCanvasQTAgg as FigureCanvas
import time
import threading



def setCustomSize(x, width, height):
    sizePolicy = QtGui.QSizePolicy(QtGui.QSizePolicy.Fixed, QtGui.QSizePolicy.Fixed)
    sizePolicy.setHorizontalStretch(0)
    sizePolicy.setVerticalStretch(0)
    sizePolicy.setHeightForWidth(x.sizePolicy().hasHeightForWidth())
    x.setSizePolicy(sizePolicy)
    x.setMinimumSize(QtCore.QSize(width, height))
    x.setMaximumSize(QtCore.QSize(width, height))

''''''

class CustomMainWindow(QtGui.QMainWindow):

    def __init__(self):

        super(CustomMainWindow, self).__init__()

        # Define the geometry of the main window
        self.setGeometry(300, 300, 800, 400)
        self.setWindowTitle("my first window")

        # Create FRAME_A
        self.FRAME_A = QtGui.QFrame(self)
        self.FRAME_A.setStyleSheet("QWidget { background-color: %s }" % QtGui.QColor(210,210,235,255).name())
        self.LAYOUT_A = QtGui.QGridLayout()
        self.FRAME_A.setLayout(self.LAYOUT_A)
        self.setCentralWidget(self.FRAME_A)

        # Place the zoom button
        self.zoomBtn = QtGui.QPushButton(text = 'zoom')
        setCustomSize(self.zoomBtn, 100, 50)
        self.zoomBtn.clicked.connect(self.zoomBtnAction)
        self.LAYOUT_A.addWidget(self.zoomBtn, *(0,0))

        # Place the matplotlib figure
        self.myFig = CustomFigCanvas()
        self.LAYOUT_A.addWidget(self.myFig, *(0,1))

        # Add the callbackfunc to ..
        myDataLoop = threading.Thread(name = 'myDataLoop', target = dataSendLoop, daemon = True, args = (self.addData_callbackFunc,))
        myDataLoop.start()

        self.show()

    ''''''


    def zoomBtnAction(self):
        print("zoom in")
        self.myFig.zoomIn(5)

    ''''''

    def addData_callbackFunc(self, value):
        # print("Add data: " + str(value))
        self.myFig.addData(value)



''' End Class '''


class CustomFigCanvas(FigureCanvas, TimedAnimation):

    def __init__(self):

        self.addedData = []
        print(matplotlib.__version__)

        # The data
        self.xlim = 200
        self.n = np.linspace(0, self.xlim - 1, self.xlim)
        a = []
        b = []
        a.append(2.0)
        a.append(4.0)
        a.append(2.0)
        b.append(4.0)
        b.append(3.0)
        b.append(4.0)
        self.y = (self.n * 0.0) + 50

        # The window
        self.fig = Figure(figsize=(5,5), dpi=100)
        self.ax1 = self.fig.add_subplot(111)


        # self.ax1 settings
        self.ax1.set_xlabel('time')
        self.ax1.set_ylabel('raw data')
        self.line1 = Line2D([], [], color='blue')
        self.line1_tail = Line2D([], [], color='red', linewidth=2)
        self.line1_head = Line2D([], [], color='red', marker='o', markeredgecolor='r')
        self.ax1.add_line(self.line1)
        self.ax1.add_line(self.line1_tail)
        self.ax1.add_line(self.line1_head)
        self.ax1.set_xlim(0, self.xlim - 1)
        self.ax1.set_ylim(0, 100)


        FigureCanvas.__init__(self, self.fig)
        TimedAnimation.__init__(self, self.fig, interval = 50, blit = True)

    def new_frame_seq(self):
        return iter(range(self.n.size))

    def _init_draw(self):
        lines = [self.line1, self.line1_tail, self.line1_head]
        for l in lines:
            l.set_data([], [])

    def addData(self, value):
        self.addedData.append(value)

    def zoomIn(self, value):
        bottom = self.ax1.get_ylim()[0]
        top = self.ax1.get_ylim()[1]
        bottom += value
        top -= value
        self.ax1.set_ylim(bottom,top)
        self.draw()


    def _step(self, *args):
        # Extends the _step() method for the TimedAnimation class.
        try:
            TimedAnimation._step(self, *args)
        except Exception as e:
            self.abc += 1
            print(str(self.abc))
            TimedAnimation._stop(self)
            pass

    def _draw_frame(self, framedata):
        margin = 2
        while(len(self.addedData) > 0):
            self.y = np.roll(self.y, -1)
            self.y[-1] = self.addedData[0]
            del(self.addedData[0])


        self.line1.set_data(self.n[ 0 : self.n.size - margin ], self.y[ 0 : self.n.size - margin ])
        self.line1_tail.set_data(np.append(self.n[-10:-1 - margin], self.n[-1 - margin]), np.append(self.y[-10:-1 - margin], self.y[-1 - margin]))
        self.line1_head.set_data(self.n[-1 - margin], self.y[-1 - margin])
        self._drawn_artists = [self.line1, self.line1_tail, self.line1_head]



''' End Class '''


# You need to setup a signal slot mechanism, to 
# send data to your GUI in a thread-safe way.
# Believe me, if you don't do this right, things
# go very very wrong..
class Communicate(QtCore.QObject):
    data_signal = QtCore.pyqtSignal(float)

''' End Class '''



def dataSendLoop(addData_callbackFunc):
    # Setup the signal-slot mechanism.
    mySrc = Communicate()
    mySrc.data_signal.connect(addData_callbackFunc)

    # Simulate some data
    n = np.linspace(0, 499, 500)
    y = 50 + 25*(np.sin(n / 8.3)) + 10*(np.sin(n / 7.5)) - 5*(np.sin(n / 1.5))
    i = 0

    while(True):
        if(i > 499):
            i = 0
        time.sleep(0.1)
        mySrc.data_signal.emit(y[i]) # <- Here you emit a signal!
        i += 1
    ###
###




if __name__== '__main__':
    app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
    QtGui.QApplication.setStyle(QtGui.QStyleFactory.create('Plastique'))
    myGUI = CustomMainWindow()


    sys.exit(app.exec_())

''''''

Just try it out. Copy-paste this code in a new python-file, and run it. You should get a beautiful, smoothly moving graph:

Answer 4

Here is a version that I got to work on my system.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from drawnow import drawnow
import numpy as np

def makeFig():
    plt.scatter(xList,yList) # I think you meant this

plt.ion() # enable interactivity
fig=plt.figure() # make a figure

xList=list()
yList=list()

for i in np.arange(50):
    y=np.random.random()
    xList.append(i)
    yList.append(y)
    drawnow(makeFig)
    #makeFig()      The drawnow(makeFig) command can be replaced
    #plt.draw()     with makeFig(); plt.draw()
    plt.pause(0.001)

The drawnow(makeFig) line can be replaced with a makeFig(); plt.draw() sequence and it still works OK.