Why is IPython.display.Image not showing in output?

Question

I have a cell that looks like this:

from IPython.display import Image
i = Image(filename='test.png')
i
print("test")

The output is just:

test

I don't see the image in the output. I checked to see that the file exists (anyway, if it did not exist, you get an error).

Any clues?

Answer 1

creating the image with

i = Image(filename='test.png')

only creates the object to display. Objects are displayed by one of two actions:

1. a direct call to IPython.display.display(obj), e.g.

   from IPython.display import display
   display(i)
   

2. the displayhook, which automatically displays the result of the cell, which is to say putting i on the last line of the cell. The lone i in your example doesn't display because it is not the last thing in the cell. So while this doesn't display the image:

   i = Image(filename='test.png')
   i
   print("test")
   

   This would:

   i = Image(filename='test.png')
   print("test")
   i
   

Answer 2

I had the same problem. Matplot lib expects to show figs outside the command line, for example in the GTK or QT.

Use this: get_ipython().magic(u'matplotlib inline')

It will enable inline backend for usage with IPython notebook.

See more here and here.