""" A very simple 'animation' of a 3D plot """ from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import axes3d import matplotlib.pyplot as plt import numpy as np import time def generate(X, Y, phi): R = 1 - np.sqrt(X**2 + Y**2) return np.cos(2 * np.pi * X + phi) * R plt.ion() fig = plt.figure() ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d') xs = np.linspace(-1, 1, 50) ys = np.linspace(-1, 1, 50) X, Y = np.meshgrid(xs, ys) Z = generate(X, Y, 0.0) wframe = None tstart = time.time() for phi in np.linspace(0, 360 / 2 / np.pi, 100): oldcol = wframe Z = generate(X, Y, phi) wframe = ax.plot_wireframe(X, Y, Z, rstride=2, cstride=2) # Remove old line collection before drawing if oldcol is not None: ax.collections.remove(oldcol) plt.draw() print 'FPS: %f' % (100 / (time.time() - tstart))