Hello,
I've been trying to animate some plots with the qt backend and run into a couple of problems.
Firstly,
I'd like to be able to update the axis limits in an automated fashion as the data changes size.
Secondly,
Resizing figures appears to redraw everything _but_ items with the animation flag. The is causing me problems when the animation is paused or the frames are occurring slow enough such that there is a noticable period where the my lines disappear.
I've sort of solved both of these problems but the solutions seem hackish. In particular updating the axis limits is slowing the animation by 25% and toggling the animated field using the qt events just feels like its asking for trouble.
Below is the qt animation example with my solutions. Adjust the size of the plot after the animation finishes to see the effect of the resize hack. I would be grateful if anyone could suggest some improvements.
Thanks,
Gerald.
# For detailed comments on animation and the techniqes used here, see
# the wiki entry http://www.scipy.org/Cookbook/Matplotlib/Animations
import os
import sys
#import matplotlib
#matplotlib.use('Qt4Agg')
from matplotlib.figure import Figure
from matplotlib.backends.backend_qt4agg import FigureCanvasQTAgg as FigureCanvas
from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui
ITERS = 100
import numpy as np
import time
class BlitQT(FigureCanvas):
def __init__(self):
FigureCanvas.__init__(self, Figure())
self.ax = self.figure.add_subplot(111)
#self.ax.grid()
self.draw()
self.old_size = self.ax.bbox.width, self.ax.bbox.height
self.ax_background = self.copy_from_bbox(self.ax.bbox)
self.cnt = 0
self.x = np.arange(0,2*np.pi,0.01)
self.sin_line, = self.ax.plot(self.x, np.sin(self.x), animated=True)
self.cos_line, = self.ax.plot(self.x, np.cos(self.x), animated=True)
self.draw()
self.old_limits = self.ax.get_xlim(),self.ax.get_ylim()
self.tstart = time.time()
self.maintimer = self.startTimer(10)
## HACK for disapearing objects on resize
def resizeEvent(self,evt):
super(BlitQT,self).resizeEvent(evt)
self.sin_line.set_animated(False)
def paintEvent(self,evt):
super(BlitQT,self).paintEvent(evt)
self.sin_line.set_animated(True)
def timerEvent(self, evt):
current_size = self.ax.bbox.width, self.ax.bbox.height
if self.old_size != current_size:
self.old_size = current_size
#self.ax.clear()
#self.ax.grid()
self.draw()
self.ax_background = self.copy_from_bbox(self.ax.bbox)
self.restore_region(self.ax_background)
# update the data
self.sin_line.set_ydata(np.sin(self.x+self.cnt/10.0)*self.cnt/100.0)
self.cos_line.set_ydata(np.cos(self.x+self.cnt/10.0)*self.cnt/100.0)
## HACK for updating axis limits
self.ax.relim()
self.ax.autoscale_view()
current_limits = self.ax.get_xlim(),self.ax.get_ylim()
if self.old_limits != current_limits:
self.old_limits = current_limits
self.draw()
self.ax_background = self.copy_from_bbox(self.ax.bbox)
self.blit(self.figure.bbox)
# just draw the animated artist
self.ax.draw_artist(self.sin_line)
self.ax.draw_artist(self.cos_line)
# just redraw the axes rectangle
self.blit(self.ax.bbox)
if self.cnt == 0:
# TODO: this shouldn't be necessary, but if it is excluded the
# canvas outside the axes is not initially painted.
self.draw()
if self.cnt==ITERS:
# print the timing info and quit
print 'FPS:' , ITERS/(time.time()-self.tstart)
#sys.exit()
self.killTimer(self.maintimer)
else:
self.cnt += 1
app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
widget = BlitQT()
widget.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())