I need the whole plot window to be transparent so that a chrome window, for example, on my desktop could be seen through the plot, so that I can add points to it while seeing what's behind it.
https://stackoverflow.com/a/45505906/13650485
The answer I've listed above is EXACTLY what I want to do, except my interactive system doesn't work with TK. I'd like to use Qt5Agg. When I run the code above, the system won't accept it -- it says QT5 is currently running. If I run it without QT already loaded, it creates a blank transparent window (yay!) but if I move it or click on the icon it turns opaque black without any plot. If I change tk to Qt5 it complains on lift. If I remove the "win" code, it has no transparency(obviously). I've tried adding everything I can think of to make the canvas transparent and I can change the color but not make it transparent.
import matplotlib
# make sure Tk backend is used
matplotlib.use("TkAgg")
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
# create a figure and some subplots
fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(4,2))
ax.plot([2,3,5,1])
fig.tight_layout()
win = plt.gcf().canvas.manager.window
win.lift()
win.attributes("-topmost", True)
win.attributes("-transparentcolor", "white")
plt.show()
When I made the changes suggested by: eyllanesc
I found within a vanilla Spyder 4.1.3 | Python 3.7.7 64-bit | Qt 5.9.6 | PyQt5 5.9.2 | Windows 10
In order to import QtCore I had to first
conda install pyqt
not enough, so then conda install pyqt5
and also conda update --all
When I did that, the code ran without errors. This is a better first result!, but I still only get the frozen mpl.fig window. This time, however, it is white. . . The console returns, but the mpl window hangs. Run again, a new frozen window. Restart and run again: same result.
I hope that this is a simple error; please teach this newby.
#eyllanesc
Revised: Python screen tracing application – needs a mostly transparent plot window.
I need the whole plot window to be transparent so that a chrome window, for example, on my desktop could be seen through the plot, so that I can add plot (x, y) points to it while seeing what's behind it.
Adding the command win.setWindowFlags(QtCore.Qt.FramelessWindowHint) did indeed make the window transparent, but it made the tool bar transparent, got rid of the title bar, and removed the ability to move or resize the window. It also made it so that the graph area was not sensitive to the mouse unless I was over the line. I added the facecolor attribute to the subplots command so I could see what was going on. As long as I put a non-zero value for either the fig-alpha or the ax-alpha, the graph is sensitive to the mouse over the whole area.
I need to be able to move and resize the window and would like to have the toolbar be opaque or at least sensitive to the mouse over the whole toolbar. Can you help with this? Thanks for past help!
## Python Code Fragment by Helen for Windows 10
## to test sequence creating plot with transparent
## background (to be used to trace and record xy pairs)
from PyQt5 import QtCore
import matplotlib
matplotlib.use("Qt5Agg") #define backend, must be before pyplot is imported
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
# create a figure and a subplot
fig,ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(4, 2),facecolor=(1.,1.,0.,0.1)) #facecolor of figure
fig.patch.set_alpha(0.1)
ax.patch.set_alpha(0.1)
# plot some fixed points
ax.plot([2, 3, 5, 1])
fig.tight_layout()
#make window transparent to the desktop
win = plt.gcf().canvas.manager.window
win.setAttribute(QtCore.Qt.WA_NoSystemBackground, True)
win.setAttribute(QtCore.Qt.WA_TranslucentBackground, True)
win.setStyleSheet("background:transparent")
win.setWindowFlags(QtCore.Qt.FramelessWindowHint)
win.setWindowTitle("My App")
plt.show()
You have to use the Qt flags, tested on Linux:
from PyQt5 import QtCore
import matplotlib
# make sure Tk backend is used
matplotlib.use("Qt5Agg")
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
# create a figure and some subplots
fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(4, 2))
fig.patch.set_alpha(0.0)
ax.patch.set_alpha(0.0)
ax.plot([2, 3, 5, 1])
fig.tight_layout()
win = plt.gcf().canvas.manager.window
win.setAttribute(QtCore.Qt.WA_NoSystemBackground, True)
win.setAttribute(QtCore.Qt.WA_TranslucentBackground, True)
win.setStyleSheet("background:transparent")
plt.show()
Related
I have a function which returns a Figure created with pyplot. This function closes the figure before returning it. If I didn't close it, showing it would be very easy with just plt.show(), but let us assume I cannot do that.
I can easily save the returned Figure to a file, but I cannot find the way to display it (i.e.: have a popped window showing the figure).
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
def new_figure():
fig = plt.figure()
plt.plot([0, 1], [2, 3])
plt.close(fig)
return fig
fig = new_figure()
fig.savefig('output.svg')
fig.show()
How could I show the figure?
When plt.close is called on a figure instance, what is actually destroyed is the graphical interface (the FigureManager) that is used to show the figure on-screen (see comment by JoeKington at Matplotlib: re-open a closed figure?). So the figure instance still exists and has not been destroyed. To show the figure on-screen again, we would have to reconstruct, in some way, an interface to replace the one that has been destroyed when calling plt.close(fig).
This can be done by simply creating a new figure with plt.figure(), "stealing" its manager, and use it to display the figure that we want to show on-screen. Alternatively, it is possible to reconstruct manually an interface to display the figure with a GUI Toolkit. I provide an example with PySide using the Qt4Agg backend. Moreover, there is a nice example that shows how this can be done with Tkinter (TkAgg) here : http://matplotlib.org/examples/user_interfaces/embedding_in_tk.html (I've tested this approach also and it works).
Dummy figure approach:
This solution is based on how to close a show() window but keep the figure alive? and Obtaining the figure manager via the OO interface in Matplotlib. The GUI toolkit that is used to construct the graphical interface for showing the figure on-screen depends on the backend that is used by matplotlib. If the backend used is TkAgg, TkInter will give some warning in Python 2.7 that can be ignored (see this post on python bug tracker).
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
def new_figure():
fig = plt.figure()
plt.plot([0, 1], [2, 3])
plt.close(fig)
return fig
def show_figure(fig):
# create a dummy figure and use its
# manager to display "fig"
dummy = plt.figure()
new_manager = dummy.canvas.manager
new_manager.canvas.figure = fig
fig.set_canvas(new_manager.canvas)
if __name__ == '__main__':
fig = new_figure()
show_figure(fig)
plt.show()
Pyside approach:
This consists in reconstructing a GUI with a new canvas and toolbar to display the fig instance on-screen.
Important Note: The code below must be executed in a new dedicated Python console (press F6) if run from Spyder, since Spyder is also a Qt application that starts it's own QApplication (see PySide Qt script doesn't launch from Spyder but works from shell).
import matplotlib
matplotlib.use('Qt4Agg')
matplotlib.rcParams['backend.qt4']='PySide'
from matplotlib.backends.backend_qt4agg import FigureCanvasQTAgg
from matplotlib.backends.backend_qt4agg import NavigationToolbar2QT
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from PySide import QtGui
import sys
def new_figure():
fig = plt.figure()
plt.plot([0, 1], [2, 3])
plt.close(fig)
return fig
class myFigCanvas(QtGui.QWidget):
def __init__(self, fig, parent=None):
super(myFigCanvas, self).__init__(parent)
#---- create new canvas and toolbar --
canvas = FigureCanvasQTAgg(fig)
toolbar = NavigationToolbar2QT(canvas, self)
#---- setup layout of GUI ----
grid = QtGui.QGridLayout()
grid.addWidget(canvas, 0, 0)
grid.addWidget(toolbar, 1, 0)
self.setLayout(grid)
if __name__ == '__main__':
app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
fig = new_figure()
new_canvas = myFigCanvas(fig)
new_canvas.show()
sys.exit(app.exec_())
which results in:
I have borrowed some code from another source and I want to edit the figure produced. Here is the relevant (i think) code from the script.
import gtk #the gui toolkit we'll use:
from matplotlib.figure import Figure
from Tkinter import *
from matplotlib.backends.backend_gtkagg import FigureCanvasGTKAgg as FigureCanvas
#create a window to put the plot in
win = gtk.Window()
#connect the destroy signal (clicking the x in the corner)
win.connect("destroy", quit_app)
win.set_default_size(600,500)
#create a plot:
fig = Figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111,xlabel='Time Step', ylabel='Temp (deg C)', axisbg='black')
ax.set_ylim(0,100) # set limits of y axis.
canvas = FigureCanvas(fig) #put the plot onto a canvas
win.add(canvas) #put the canvas in the window
#show the window
win.show_all()
win.set_title("ready to receive data");
line, = ax.plot(times,yvals, color='red')
while(1):
line.set_ydata(yvals) # draw the line
fig.canvas.draw() # update the Canvas
win.set_title("Temp: "+str(yvals[49])+" deg C")
I don't know whether or not all the code above is necessary - but that is all the 'plot' related code I could find.
So anyway the code works in my program perfectly.
There are TWO tasks I would like to create:
(1) What I want is to include that 'str(yvals[49])' variable, which is currently being displayed in the title of the window, to be displayed in large font underneath the plot. So I think I need to make the window size a little bigger to accompany the text but not sure how to print it.
(2) I manged to change the background of the plot itself to black that plots a red line. But how can I change the background of the window itself to all black and the x/y axis to red as well.
Thanks!!
(1) What you are most probably looking for it the matplotlib text command. Have a look at http://matplotlib.org/users/pyplot_tutorial.html section working with text. It might be convenient to create two separate axes, so you can truly put the text below the whole figure. Maybe it is enough to place the text at xlabel position?
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
plt.xlabel('yourtext')
(2) There are already good answers out there that might help you: e.g. How to change the pylab window background color?
As for the color of the axis Changing the color of the axis, ticks and labels for a plot in matplotlib
Have also a look at Matplotlib figure facecolor (background color) in case you want to save the figure.
I'm trying to use matplotlib for chart visualizations, but it is very annoying to look for a window each time I run the project. Is there any way to force it to be on top of other windows? I use OSX 10.8 and PyCharm IDE and already tried
from pylab import get_current_fig_manager()
get_current_fig_manager().window.raise_()
Which fails with
AttributeError: 'FigureManagerMac' object has no attribute 'window'
I'd appreciate any other ideas.
you're call to window.raise_() is from PyQT.
Indeed, you can raise the window in this way but you need to:
set PyQT4 as your backend before you do any other business with matplotlib
And
import matplotlib
matplotlib.use('Qt4Agg')
Either you fix you import statement (remove the brackets) or save yourself the import and access the window through the figure
with
window = fig.canvas.manager.window
Only then you can call window.raise_() and the window will be in front of pycharm.
This works for me from IPython:
from pylab import get_current_fig_manager
fm = get_current_fig_manager()
fm.show()
I haven't found a case in which show() doesn't work by itself, though.
[cphlewis] had a great answer. I found myself doing this so often that I def a little function to pop all my windows up to the surface:
def pop_all():
#bring all the figures hiding in the background to the foreground
all_figures=[manager.canvas.figure for manager in matplotlib.\
_pylab_helpers.Gcf.get_all_fig_managers()]
[fig.canvas.manager.show() for fig in all_figures]
return len(all_figures)
I am using a Matplotlib plot (with Basemap) inside of a wxPython pane. I have got the plot (US map with scatter plot of cities). I am trying to do some interactive zoom capabilities (select a box on the map and "zoom" into that area only).
I have managed to get the toolbar to show, but when i click on the buttons, nothing happens. Seems like the toolbar is just there for show. Any Thoughts? Here is my code:
# Set up area for plotting Basemap Plot and scatter plot
self.figure = Figure(None,dpi=75)
self.canvas = FigureCanvas(self.PlotPanel, -1, self.figure)
self.axes = self.figure.add_axes([0,0,1,1],frameon=False)
self.SetColor( (255,255,255) )
# Toolbar Set up
self.toolbar=NavigationToolbar2Wx(self.canvas)
self.toolbar.Realize()
tw,th = self.toolbar.GetSizeTuple()
fw,fh = self.canvas.GetSizeTuple()
self.toolbar.SetSize(wx.Size(fw,th))
sizer_7.Add(self.toolbar,0)
self.toolbar.update()
Have a look at the embedding_in_wx2 example, which works fine for me.
Maybe there is something wrong with your imports: you first have to import matplotlib, than set the backend (matplotlib.use('WXagg')) and then import the backend.
However it isn't easy to help you without having a full example with all imports.
Is it possible to change the icon of a Matplotlibe figure window? My application has a button that opens a Figure window with a graph (created with Matplotlib). I managed to modify the application icon, but the figure window still has the 'Tk' icon, typical of Tkinter.
I solved it in this way:
BEFORE I press the button that creates the figure with imshow() and show(), I initialize the figure in this way:
plt.Figure()
thismanager = get_current_fig_manager()
thismanager.window.wm_iconbitmap("icon.ico")
so when I press show() the window has the icon I want.
For me the previous answer did not work, rather the following was required:
from Tkinter import PhotoImage
import matplotlib
thismanager = matplotlib.pyplot.get_current_fig_manager()
img = PhotoImage(file='filename.ppm')
thismanager.window.tk.call('wm', 'iconphoto', thismanager.window._w, img)
Just adding this here, now that the Qt5Agg backend has made it's way into the mainstream. It's similar (pretty much the same) to the Qt4Agg backend as outlined by Sijie Chen's answer.
import os
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from PyQt5 import QtGui
# Whatever string that leads to the directory of the icon including its name
PATH_TO_ICON = os.path.dirname(__file__) + '/static/icons/icon.ico'
plt.get_current_fig_manager().window.setWindowIcon(QtGui.QIcon(PATH_TO_ICON))
If you are using Qt4Agg backend, the following code may help you:
thismanager = plt.get_current_fig_manager()
from PyQt4 import QtGui
thismanager.window.setWindowIcon(QtGui.QIcon((os.path.join('res','shepherd.png'))))
I found that under OS X with PyQT5, doing plt.get_current_fig_manager().window.setWindowIcon() has no effect. To get the dock icon to change you have to call setWindowIcon() on the QApplication instance, not on the window.
What worked for me is:
QApplication.instance().setWindowIcon(QtGui.QIcon(icon_path))
Do mind that QApplication.instance() will be None until you have actually created a figure, so do that first.