How to pause a pylab figure until a key is pressed or mouse is clicked? (Matplotlib)

To pause a pylab figure until a key is pressed of mouse is clicked, we can use"button_press_event" key event.

Steps

Set the figure size and adjust the padding between and around the subplots.
Set the "TkAgg" background.
Turn the interactive mode ON.
Create a new figure or activate an existing figure.
Make a variable, pause=False.
Whenever "button_press_event", pause the figure.
Bind the function to the event.
Create data, x and y data points using numpy.
Iterate a True loop to change the plot line and color.
To display the figure, use show() method.

Example

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

plt.rcParams["figure.figsize"] = [7.50, 3.50]
plt.rcParams["figure.autolayout"] = True

matplotlib.use("TkAgg")

plt.ion()

fig = plt.figure()

pause = False

def onclick(event):
   global pause
   pause = not pause

fig.canvas.mpl_connect('button_press_event', onclick)

data = np.linspace(-10, 10, 100)

x = np.sin(data)
y = np.cos(data)

flag = 1

while True:
   if not pause:
      if flag == 1:
         fig.clear()
         plt.plot(data, y, color='red')
         flag = 0
      else:
         fig.clear()
         plt.plot(data, x, color='yellow')
         flag = 1
   fig.canvas.get_tk_widget().update()

Output

You will see sine and cosine waves alternatively in yellow and red until you click a mouse button. The figure will pause after clicking either of the mouse buttons.

Rishikesh Kumar Rishi

Updated on: 18-Jun-2021

696 Views

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