matplotlib - store image in variable

Question

I would like to store the image generated by matplotlib in a variable raw_data to use it as inline image.

import os
import sys
os.e         


        

Answer 1

Have you tried cStringIO or an equivalent?

import os
import sys
import matplotlib
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import StringIO
import urllib, base64

plt.plot(range(10, 20))
fig = plt.gcf()

imgdata = StringIO.StringIO()
fig.savefig(imgdata, format='png')
imgdata.seek(0)  # rewind the data

print "Content-type: image/png\n"
uri = 'data:image/png;base64,' + urllib.quote(base64.b64encode(imgdata.buf))
print '<img src = "%s"/>' % uri

Answer 2

Complete python 3 version, putting together Paul's answer and metaperture's comment.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import io
import urllib, base64

plt.plot(range(10))
fig = plt.gcf()

buf = io.BytesIO()
fig.savefig(buf, format='png')
buf.seek(0)
string = base64.b64encode(buf.read())

uri = 'data:image/png;base64,' + urllib.parse.quote(string)
html = '<img src = "%s"/>' % uri