README.md

Pycharm interactive charts is a plugin for PyCharm IDE that allows to use interactive features of matplotlib.

Here's a description of how to use this plugin

Basic

For example, you have a foo function that draws some function's chart, for example, sinus.

from matplotlib import pylab as plt
import numpy as np

def foo():
    x = np.arange(0, 10, 0.02)
    plt.plot(x, np.sin(x))
    plt.show()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    foo()

You will see something like that:

But if you decide that you want not only sin(x) function, but sin(2*x), sin(3*x) and so on. Of course, you can make this kind of code

from matplotlib import pylab as plt
import numpy as np

def foo(i):
    x = np.arange(0, 10, 0.02)
    plt.plot(x, np.sin(i * x))
    plt.show()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    for i in range(1, 10):
        foo(i)

But that's quite ugly, isn't it? You will see all 9 images of sin(i*x) function, but only one at a time and after you close it, it will have never been shown again. Also, you can stack all this charts into figure, but that need some skill :-)

It can be done in more elegant way with this plugin

from interactive_matplotlib import interactive
from matplotlib import pylab as plt
import numpy as np

def foo(i):
    x = np.arange(0, 10, 0.02)
    plt.plot(x, np.sin(i * x))
    plt.show()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    interactive(foo, i=(1,10))

Simple enough. Now you can just drag the slider, that represents i parameter and see how your sinus function chart changes as you change your parameter like on pictures below:

To end interactive session or go to next one, just press refresh button.

Advanced

Also, if you want so, you can display several charts. You can just call plt.plot() with plt.show() as many times as you need to. As a result, all charts will display with the same amount of controlling widgets.

from interactive_matplotlib import interactive
import numpy as np
from matplotlib import pylab as plt

x = np.arange(0, 10, 0.02)

def f(b, c):
    plt.xlabel(c)
    plt.plot(x, np.sin(b*x))
    plt.show()
    plt.xlabel(c)
    plt.plot(x, np.tan(b*x))
    plt.show()
    plt.xlabel(c)
    plt.plot(x, x ** b)
    plt.show()

interactive(f, b=(1,11,5), c="First Axis")

Now, you can simply switch between charts using left or right arrows.

That's all. Good luck!