How to animate a moving scatter point

Question

I am a beginner to Python. I'm trying to make an animation of a point moving in the horizontal direction. But, when I ran the code I received the below error:

TypeError: 'PathCollection' object is not iterable

I have no idea how to fix it.

#----------------------------------------------------------------------
import numpy as np
import matplotlib
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.animation import FuncAnimation

Acc_11 = [1,2,3,4,6,7]
lenAcc11 = len(Acc_11)
Acc_12 = [2,2,2,2,2,2]

# Scatter plot
fig = plt.figure(figsize = (5,5))
ax = plt.axes()
scat = ax.scatter([],[])

#initial func
def init():
    return scat 
#animation func
def ani (i):

    for i in range(0,lenAcc11):
        acc_11 = Acc_11[i]
        print (acc_11)
        acc_11_pos = Acc_12[i]
        print (acc_11_pos)
    scat = scat.set_data(acc_11,acc_11_pos)
    return scat
ani = FuncAnimation(fig, ani, init_func = init, interval = 10, blit =True)

plt.show()             


#--------------------------------------------------------------------------

There is similar question regarding scatter plot animation [here](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9401658/matplotlib-animating-a-scatter-plot), I hope that will solve your problem. Additionally, scatter plot handle doesn't have `set_data` method try using `set_array`. — hashmuke, Feb 20 '16 at 10:26

score 6 · Accepted Answer · edited Oct 05 '21 at 20:30

Show all points

This shows all points:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.animation import FuncAnimation

Acc_11 = [1,2,3,4,6,7]
Acc_12 = [2,2,2,2,2,2]

# Scatter plot
fig = plt.figure(figsize = (5,5))


def ani(coords):
     return plt.scatter([coords[0]],[coords[1]], color='g')

def frames():
    for acc_11_pos, acc_12_pos in zip(Acc_11, Acc_12):
        yield acc_11_pos, acc_12_pos

ani = FuncAnimation(fig, ani, frames=frames, interval=1000)

plt.show()

Show only one moving point

This shows only one point at a time:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from matplotlib.animation import FuncAnimation

Acc_11 = [1,2,3,4,6,7]
Acc_12 = [2,2,2,2,2,2]

# Scatter plot
fig = plt.figure(figsize = (5,5))
axes = fig.add_subplot(111)
axes.set_xlim(min(Acc_11), max(Acc_11))
axes.set_ylim(min(Acc_12), max(Acc_12))

point, = axes.plot([Acc_11[0]],[Acc_12[0]], 'go')

def ani(coords):
    point.set_data([coords[0]],[coords[1]])
    return point

def frames():
    for acc_11_pos, acc_12_pos in zip(Acc_11, Acc_12):
        yield acc_11_pos, acc_12_pos

ani = FuncAnimation(fig, ani, frames=frames, interval=1000)

plt.show()

From a dataframe instead of a list

Both of the previous options work fine with a dataframe. Set Acc_11 = to be the dataframe column for the x-axis and Acc_12 = to bet the dataframe column for the y-axis.

import seaborn as sns

# sample dataframe
tips = sns.load_dataset('tips')

x = tips.total_bill
y = tips.tip

# Scatter plot
fig = plt.figure(figsize = (5,5))

def ani(coords):
     return plt.scatter([coords[0]], [coords[1]], color='g')

    
def frames():
    for x_pos, y_pos in zip(x, y):
        yield x_pos, y_pos

        
ani = animation.FuncAnimation(fig, ani, frames=frames, interval=1000)
ani.save('animation2.gif', fps=30)

plt.show()

How to animate a moving scatter point

1 Answers1

Show all points

Show only one moving point

From a dataframe instead of a list

Linked