How can I record the X Y limits of a displayed X Y plot using the matplotlib show module

Question

I have routine that makes X,Y plots and I use show() to reformat the plot and use an interactive cursor. However, I am unable to access information after using show() about, for example, the X and Y limits I used in my final version. There are a lot of things I would like to understand about show(). Is there a good source of general information on how to use show()?

Comments

Are you running the script on ipython with pylab mode or in non-interactive mode?

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matplotlib.pyplot.show(*args, **kw)

The show module when running in ipython with its pylab mode, display all figures and return to the ipython prompt.

When you are using a non-interactive mode it will display all figures and block until the figures have been closed.

When you are using it in an interactive mode it will have no effect unless figures were created prior to a change from non-interactive to interactive mode.

Answer 1

A couple hours after posting this question I found some info on interactive mode. I never appreciated that show() is of noninteractive mode (ipoff). I used plt.ipon to turn interactibve mode on and found that this performance is what I was after. I can record X,Y positions and keystroke values and pass them back. Todays project: how to query and adjust the values in the rcParams dictionary to learn (for instance) the X,Y virtaul limints for the axes used in the last viewing. Thanks for you interest.

Comments

Hey @anonymus, to change the default rc settings in python script, you need to know that all the rc values are stored in dictionary-like variables known as matplotlib.rcParams. This is the global package it can be modified like this:

mpl.rcParams['lines.linewidth'] = length
mpl.rcParams['lines.color'] = 'color' 
plt.plot(data)

Hope this helps.

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Have you tried some script to do this?