Get Interactive Plots in Spyder with IPython and Matplotlib

To get interactive plots, we need to activate the figure. Using plt.ioff() and plt.ion(), we can perform interactive actions with plot.

Steps

• Create fig and ax variables using subplots method, where default nrows and ncols are 1.

• Draw a line, using plot() method.

• Set the color of the line, i.e., orange.

• Stopped the interaction, using plt.ioff() method.

• To make the interaction plots, change the color of the line coordinate.

• Start the interaction, using plt.ion() method.

Example

To use interactive plot in Ipython -

In [1]: %matplotlib auto

Using matplotlib backend: GTK3Agg

In [2]: import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

In [3]: fig, ax = plt.subplots()    # Diagram will get popped up, Let’s interact.

In [4]: ln, = ax.plot(range(5))     # Drawing a line

In [5]: ln.set_color('orange')      # Changing drawn line to orange

In [6]: plt.ioff()                  # Stopped interaction

In [7]: ln.set_color('green')
# Since we have stopped the interaction in the last step

In [8]: plt.ion()                   # Started interaction

Output