TkAgg... GTKAgg. What difference does a letter make. That
> helped. I couldn't remember the windows backend.
> I still have a problem, but now it's the same if I import
> either matplotlib or pylab:
Your rc file is out of date, in this case the parameters for handling
image aspect ratio are different. Try updating your rc file from the
recent defaults
### MATPLOTLIBRC FORMAT
# This is a sample matplotlib configuration file. It should be placed
# in HOME/.matplotlib/matplotlibrc (unix/linux like systems) and
# C:\Documents and Settings\yourname\.matplotlib (win32 systems)
···
#
# By default, the installer will overwrite the existing file in the
# install path, so if you want to preserve your's, please move it to
# your HOME dir and set the environment variable if necessary.
#
# This file is best viewed in a editor which supports python mode
# syntax highlighting
#
# Blank lines, or lines starting with a comment symbol, are ignored,
# as are trailing comments. Other lines must have the format
#
# key : val # optional comment
#
# Colors: for the color values below, you can either use
# - a matplotlib color string, such as r, k, or b
# - an rgb tuple, such as (1.0, 0.5, 0.0)
# - a hex string, such as ff00ff (no '#' symbol)
# - a scalar grayscale intensity such as 0.75
# - a legal html color name, eg red, blue, darkslategray
#### CONFIGURATION BEGINS HERE
# the default backend; one of GTK GTKAgg GTKCairo FltkAgg QtAgg TkAgg
# Agg Cairo GD GDK Paint PS PDF SVG Template
backend : GTKAgg
numerix : numpy # numpy, Numeric or numarray
interactive : False # see http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/interactive.html
toolbar : toolbar2 # None | classic | toolbar2
timezone : UTC # a pytz timezone string, eg US/Central or Europe/Paris
# Where your matplotlib data lives if you installed to a non-default
# location. This is where the matplotlib fonts, bitmaps, etc reside
#datapath : /home/jdhunter/mpldata
### LINES
# See http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/matplotlib.lines.html for more
# information on line properties.
lines.linewidth : 1.0 # line width in points
lines.linestyle : - # solid line
lines.color : blue
lines.marker : None # the default marker
lines.markerfacecolor : blue
lines.markeredgecolor : black
lines.markeredgewidth : 0.5 # the line width around the marker symbol
lines.markersize : 6 # markersize, in points
lines.dash_joinstyle : miter # miter|round|bevel
lines.dash_capstyle : butt # butt|round|projecting
lines.solid_joinstyle : miter # miter|round|bevel
lines.solid_capstyle : projecting # butt|round|projecting
lines.antialiased : True # render lines in antialised (no jaggies)
### PATCHES
# Patches are graphical objects that fill 2D space, like polygons or
# circles. See
# http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/matplotlib.patches.html for more
# information on patch properties
patch.linewidth : 1.0 # edge width in points
patch.facecolor : blue
patch.edgecolor : black
patch.antialiased : True # render patches in antialised (no jaggies)
### FONT
#
# font properties used by text.Text. See
# http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/matplotlib.font_manager.html for more
# information on font properties. The 6 font properties used for font
# matching are given below with their default values.
#
# The font.family property has five values: 'serif' (e.g. Times),
# 'sans-serif' (e.g. Helvetica), 'cursive' (e.g. Zapf-Chancery),
# 'fantasy' (e.g. Western), and 'monospace' (e.g. Courier). Each of
# these font families has a default list of font names in decreasing
# order of priority associated with them.
#
# The font.style property has three values: normal (or roman), italic
# or oblique. The oblique style will be used for italic, if it is not
# present.
#
# The font.variant property has two values: normal or small-caps. For
# TrueType fonts, which are scalable fonts, small-caps is equivalent
# to using a font size of 'smaller', or about 83% of the current font
# size.
#
# The font.weight property has effectively 13 values: normal, bold,
# bolder, lighter, 100, 200, 300, ..., 900. Normal is the same as
# 400, and bold is 700. bolder and lighter are relative values with
# respect to the current weight.
#
# The font.stretch property has 11 values: ultra-condensed,
# extra-condensed, condensed, semi-condensed, normal, semi-expanded,
# expanded, extra-expanded, ultra-expanded, wider, and narrower. This
# property is not currently implemented.
#
# The font.size property is the default font size for text, given in pts.
# 12pt is the standard value.
#
font.family : sans-serif
font.style : normal
font.variant : normal
font.weight : medium
font.stretch : normal
# note that font.size controls default text sizes. To configure
# special text sizes tick labels, axes, labels, title, etc, see the rc
# settings for axes and ticks. Special text sizes can be defined
# relative to font.size, using the following values: xx-small, x-small,
# small, medium, large, x-large, xx-large, larger, or smaller
font.size : 12.0
font.serif : New Century Schoolbook, Century Schoolbook L, Utopia, ITC Bookman, Bookman, Bitstream Vera Serif, Nimbus Roman No9 L, Times New Roman, Times, Palatino, Charter, serif
font.sans-serif : Lucida Grande, Verdana, Geneva, Lucida, Bitstream Vera Sans, Arial, Helvetica, Avant Garde, sans-serif
font.cursive : Apple Chancery, Textile, Zapf Chancery, Sand, cursive
font.fantasy : Comic Sans MS, Chicago, Charcoal, Impact, Western, fantasy
font.monospace : Andale Mono, Bitstream Vera Sans Mono, Nimbus Mono L, Courier New, Courier, Fixed, Terminal, monospace
### TEXT
# text properties used by text.Text. See
# http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/matplotlib.text.html for more
# information on text properties
text.color : black
text.usetex : False # use latex for all text handling. For more information, see
# http://www.scipy.org/Wiki/Cookbook/Matplotlib/UsingTex
text.dvipnghack : False # some versions of dvipng don't handle
# alpha channel properly. Use True to correct and flush
# ~/.matplotlib/tex.cache before testing
### AXES
# default face and edge color, default tick sizes,
# default fontsizes for ticklabels, and so on. See
# http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/matplotlib.axes.html#Axes
axes.hold : True # whether to clear the axes by default on
axes.facecolor : white # axes background color
axes.edgecolor : black # axes edge color
axes.linewidth : 1.0 # edge linewidth
axes.grid : False # display grid or not
axes.titlesize : 14 # fontsize of the axes title
axes.labelsize : 12 # fontsize of the x any y labels
axes.labelcolor : black
axes.axisbelow : False # whether axis gridlines and ticks are below
# the axes elements (lines, text, etc)
polaraxes.grid : True # display grid on polar axes
### TICKS
# see http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/matplotlib.axis.html#Ticks
xtick.major.size : 4 # major tick size in points
xtick.minor.size : 2 # minor tick size in points
xtick.major.pad : 4 # distance to major tick label in points
xtick.minor.pad : 4 # distance to the minor tick label in points
xtick.color : k # color of the tick labels
xtick.labelsize : 12 # fontsize of the tick labels
xtick.direction : in # direction: in or out
ytick.major.size : 4 # major tick size in points
ytick.minor.size : 2 # minor tick size in points
ytick.major.pad : 4 # distance to major tick label in points
ytick.minor.pad : 4 # distance to the minor tick label in points
ytick.color : k # color of the tick labels
ytick.labelsize : 12 # fontsize of the tick labels
ytick.direction : in # direction: in or out
### GRIDS
grid.color : black # grid color
grid.linestyle : : # dotted
grid.linewidth : 0.5 # in points
### Legend
legend.isaxes : True
legend.numpoints : 4 # the number of points in the legend line
legend.fontsize : 14
legend.pad : 0.2 # the fractional whitespace inside the legend border
legend.markerscale : 1.0 # the relative size of legend markers vs. original
# the following dimensions are in axes coords
legend.labelsep : 0.010 # the vertical space between the legend entries
legend.handlelen : 0.05 # the length of the legend lines
legend.handletextsep : 0.02 # the space between the legend line and legend text
legend.axespad : 0.02 # the border between the axes and legend edge
legend.shadow : False
### FIGURE
# See http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/matplotlib.figure.html#Figure
figure.figsize : 8, 6 # figure size in inches
figure.dpi : 80 # figure dots per inch
figure.facecolor : 0.75 # figure facecolor; 0.75 is scalar gray
figure.edgecolor : white # figure edgecolor
# The figure subplot parameters. All dimensions are fraction of the
# figure width or height
figure.subplot.left : 0.125 # the left side of the subplots of the figure
figure.subplot.right : 0.9 # the right side of the subplots of the figure
figure.subplot.bottom : 0.1 # the bottom of the subplots of the figure
figure.subplot.top : 0.9 # the top of the subplots of the figure
figure.subplot.wspace : 0.2 # the amount of width reserved for blank space between subplots
figure.subplot.hspace : 0.2 # the amount of height reserved for white space between subplots
### IMAGES
image.aspect : equal # equal | auto | a number
image.interpolation : bilinear # see help(imshow) for options
image.cmap : jet # gray | jet etc...
image.lut : 256 # the size of the colormap lookup table
image.origin : upper # lower | upper
### CONTOUR PLOTS
contour.negative_linestyle : 6.0, 6.0 # negative contour dashstyle (size in points)
### SAVING FIGURES
# the default savefig params can be different for the GUI backends.
# Eg, you may want a higher resolution, or to make the figure
# background white
savefig.dpi : 100 # figure dots per inch
savefig.facecolor : white # figure facecolor when saving
savefig.edgecolor : white # figure edgecolor when saving
# tk backend params
tk.window_focus : False # Maintain shell focus for TkAgg
tk.pythoninspect : False # tk sets PYTHONINSEPCT
# ps backend params
ps.papersize : letter # auto, letter, legal, ledger, A0-A10, B0-B10
ps.useafm : False # use of afm fonts, results in small files
ps.usedistiller : False # can be: None, ghostscript or xpdf
# Experimental: may produce smaller files.
# xpdf intended for production of publication quality files,
# but requires ghostscript, xpdf and ps2eps
ps.distiller.res : 6000 # dpi
# pdf backend params
pdf.compression : 6 # integer from 0 to 9
# 0 disables compression (good for debugging)
# Set the verbose flags. This controls how much information
# matplotlib gives you at runtime and where it goes. Ther verbosity
# levels are: silent, helpful, debug, debug-annoying. Any level is
# inclusive of all the levels below it. If you setting is debug,
# you'll get all the debug and helpful messages. When submitting
# problems to the mailing-list, please set verbose to helpful or debug
# and paste the output into your report.
#
# The fileo gives the destination for any calls to verbose.report.
# These objects can a filename, or a filehandle like sys.stdout.
#
# You can override the rc default verbosity from the command line by
# giving the flags --verbose-LEVEL where LEVEL is one of the legal
# levels, eg --verbose-helpful.
#
# You can access the verbose instance in your code
# from matplotlib import verbose.
verbose.level : silent # one of silent, helpful, debug, debug-annoying
verbose.fileo : sys.stdout # a log filename, sys.stdout or sys.stderr