Generate movie from python without saving individual frames to file

This functionality is now (at least since 1.2.0, possibly 1.1) baked into matplotlib via subclasses in the MovieWriterclass and its animationmodules . You also need to install it ffmpegin advance .

import matplotlib.animation as animation
import numpy as np
from pylab import *


dpi = 100

def ani_frame():
    fig = plt.figure()
    ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
    ax.set_aspect('equal')
    ax.get_xaxis().set_visible(False)
    ax.get_yaxis().set_visible(False)

    im = ax.imshow(rand(300,300),cmap='gray',interpolation='nearest')
    im.set_clim([0,1])
    fig.set_size_inches([5,5])


    tight_layout()


    def update_img(n):
        tmp = rand(300,300)
        im.set_data(tmp)
        return im

    #legend(loc=0)
    ani = animation.FuncAnimation(fig,update_img,300,interval=30)
    writer = animation.writers['ffmpeg'](fps=30)

    ani.save('demo.mp4',writer=writer,dpi=dpi)
    return ani

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