stop / start / pause in python matplotlib animation

Question

I'm using FuncAnimation in matplotlib's animation module for some basic animation. This function perpetually loops through the animation. Is there a way by which I can pause and restart the animation by, say, mouse clicks?

Answer 1

Here is a FuncAnimation example which I modified to pause on mouse clicks. Since the animation is driven by a generator function, simData, when the global variable pause is True, yielding the same data makes the animation appear paused.

The value of paused is toggled by setting up an event callback:

def onClick(event):     global pause     pause ^= True fig.canvas.mpl_connect('button_press_event', onClick) 

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import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import numpy as np import matplotlib.animation as animation  pause = False def simData():     t_max = 10.0     dt = 0.05     x = 0.0     t = 0.0     while t < t_max:         if not pause:             x = np.sin(np.pi*t)             t = t + dt         yield x, t  def onClick(event):     global pause     pause ^= True  def simPoints(simData):     x, t = simData[0], simData[1]     time_text.set_text(time_template%(t))     line.set_data(t, x)     return line, time_text  fig = plt.figure() ax = fig.add_subplot(111) line, = ax.plot([], [], 'bo', ms=10) ax.set_ylim(-1, 1) ax.set_xlim(0, 10)  time_template = 'Time = %.1f s' time_text = ax.text(0.05, 0.9, '', transform=ax.transAxes) fig.canvas.mpl_connect('button_press_event', onClick) ani = animation.FuncAnimation(fig, simPoints, simData, blit=False, interval=10,     repeat=True) fig.show() 

Answer 2

This works...

anim = animation.FuncAnimation(fig, animfunc[,..other args])  #pause anim.event_source.stop()  #unpause anim.event_source.start()