3D animation using matplotlib
Here is the following code for a sphere moving to the right and off the screen.
You will have to run this code in a folder for tidiness, as it generates 26 .png
images (and a .gif
image):
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import axes3d
from numpy import sin, cos, pi, outer, ones, size, linspace
# Define x, y, z lists for sphere
a = linspace(0, 2 * pi)
b = linspace(0, pi)
x = 10 * outer(cos(a), sin(b))
y = 10 * outer(sin(a), sin(b))
z = 10 * outer(ones(size(a)), cos(b))
# The amount of frames in the animation
frames = 26
# Generate each frame
for n in range(frames):
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(10, 10))
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')
ax.plot_surface(x, y, z, color=('b'))
ax.set_xticks([])
ax.set_yticks([])
ax.set_zticks([])
ax.set_xlim(-8,8)
ax.set_xlim(-8,8)
ax.set_xlim(-8,8)
plt.savefig(f"{n}.png")
plt.close()
# Add 1 to the x so the sphere moves right by 1
x += 1
# Use pillow to save all frames as an animation in a gif file
from PIL import Image
images = [Image.open(f"{n}.png") for n in range(frames)]
images[0].save('ball.gif', save_all=True, append_images=images[1:], duration=100, loop=0)
Output:
I used this example http://matplotlib.org/1.4.1/examples/animation/simple_3danim.html and modified your code:
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
from matplotlib import animation
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(projection='3d')
def gen(n):
phi = 0
while phi < 2*np.pi:
yield np.array([np.cos(phi), np.sin(phi), phi])
phi += 2*np.pi/n
def update(num, data, line):
line.set_data(data[:2, :num])
line.set_3d_properties(data[2, :num])
N = 100
data = np.array(list(gen(N))).T
line, = ax.plot(data[0, 0:1], data[1, 0:1], data[2, 0:1])
# Setting the axes properties
ax.set_xlim3d([-1.0, 1.0])
ax.set_xlabel('X')
ax.set_ylim3d([-1.0, 1.0])
ax.set_ylabel('Y')
ax.set_zlim3d([0.0, 10.0])
ax.set_zlabel('Z')
ani = animation.FuncAnimation(fig, update, N, fargs=(data, line), interval=10000/N, blit=False)
#ani.save('matplot003.gif', writer='imagemagick')
plt.show()