Prerequisite: Introduction to Tkinter | Introduction to Matplotlib
When Matplotlib is used from Python shell, the plots are displayed in a default window. The plots can be embedded in many graphical user interfaces like wxpython, pygtk, or Tkinter. These various options available as a target for the output plot are referred to as ‘backends‘. There are various modules available in matplotlib.backend for choosing the backend. One such module is backend_tkagg which is useful for embedding plots in Tkinter.
Creating the Tkinter Application :
First, let us create a basic Tkinter application with the main window and one button which can be used to display the plot.
Python3
# import all classes/methods# from the tkinter modulefrom tkinter import * # The main tkinter windowwindow = Tk() # setting the title and window.title('Plotting in Tkinter') # setting the dimensions of # the main windowwindow.geometry("500x500") # button that would displays the plotplot_button = Button(master = window, height = 2, width = 10, text = "Plot")# place the button# into the windowplot_button.pack() # run the guiwindow.mainloop() |
Output :
Embedding the Plot:
First, we need to create the figure object using the Figure() class. Then, a Tkinter canvas(containing the figure) is created using FigureCanvasTkAgg() class. Matplotlib charts by default have a toolbar at the bottom. When working with Tkinter, however, this toolbar needs to be embedded in the canvas separately using the NavigationToolbar2Tk() class.
In the implementation below, a simple graph for:
is plotted. The plot function is bound to a button that displays the figure when pressed.
Python3
from tkinter import * from matplotlib.figure import Figurefrom matplotlib.backends.backend_tkagg import (FigureCanvasTkAgg, NavigationToolbar2Tk) # plot function is created for # plotting the graph in # tkinter windowdef plot(): # the figure that will contain the plot fig = Figure(figsize = (5, 5), dpi = 100) # list of squares y = [i**2 for i in range(101)] # adding the subplot plot1 = fig.add_subplot(111) # plotting the graph plot1.plot(y) # creating the Tkinter canvas # containing the Matplotlib figure canvas = FigureCanvasTkAgg(fig, master = window) canvas.draw() # placing the canvas on the Tkinter window canvas.get_tk_widget().pack() # creating the Matplotlib toolbar toolbar = NavigationToolbar2Tk(canvas, window) toolbar.update() # placing the toolbar on the Tkinter window canvas.get_tk_widget().pack() # the main Tkinter windowwindow = Tk() # setting the title window.title('Plotting in Tkinter') # dimensions of the main windowwindow.geometry("500x500") # button that displays the plotplot_button = Button(master = window, command = plot, height = 2, width = 10, text = "Plot") # place the button # in main windowplot_button.pack() # run the guiwindow.mainloop() |
Output :
