How to generate 2D gaussian with Python?

Question

I can generate Gaussian data with random.gauss(mu, sigma) function, but how can I generate 2D gaussian? Is there any function like that?

Answer 1

Numpy has a function to do this. It is documented here. Additionally to the method proposed above it allows to draw samples with arbitrary covariance.

Here is a small example, assuming ipython -pylab is started:

samples = multivariate_normal([-0.5, -0.5], [[1, 0],[0, 1]], 1000)
plot(samples[:, 0], samples[:, 1], '.')

samples = multivariate_normal([0.5, 0.5], [[0.1, 0.5],[0.5, 0.6]], 1000)
plot(samples[:, 0], samples[:, 1], '.')