Embedding Images and matplotlib Plots together on on tk canvas

Question

A few years ago I wrote a script in python2 that would pull images and generate plots and show them together in one gui, following this old documentation. However, I'm trying to update this to python3, and I've run into an issue with the way that plots are put on tk windows in the latest version of matplotlib. There are updated guides for how to embed matplotlib graphs in tk windows, of course, but these don't seem to be exactly what I want, since I want to plot various images and graphs together.

Currently:

# Start by creating the GUI as root
root=Tk()
root.wm_title("JADESView")

# Create the canvas 
canvas=Canvas(root, height=canvasheight, width=canvaswidth)

# Plot the EAZY SED
#image = Image.open(EAZY_files+str(current_id)+"_EAZY_SED.png")
image = getEAZYimage(current_id)

# Crop out the thumbnails
image = cropEAZY(image)

photo = resizeimage(image)
item4 = canvas.create_image(eazy_positionx, eazy_positiony, image=photo)
Label(root, text="EAZY FIT", font=('helvetica', int(textsizevalue*1.5))).place(x=eazytext_positionx, y = eazytext_positiony)

# Plot the BEAGLE SED
#new_image = Image.open(BEAGLE_files+str(current_id)+"_BEAGLE_SED.png")
new_image = getBEAGLEimage(current_id)
new_photo = resizeimage(new_image)
item5 = canvas.create_image(beagle_positionx, beagle_positiony, image=new_photo)
Label(root, text="BEAGLE FIT", font=('helvetica', int(textsizevalue*1.5))).place(x=beagletext_positionx, y = beagletext_positiony)
    
canvas.pack(side = TOP, expand=True, fill=BOTH)

# Plot the thumbnails
fig_photo_objects = np.empty(0, dtype = 'object')
fig_photo_objects = create_thumbnails(canvas, fig_photo_objects, current_id, current_index, defaultstretch)

I create a tk.canvas object, and then use canvas.create_image to place two PIL photo objects, with labels (the "EAZY SED" and BEAGLE SED"), and this still works with python3. However, the create_thumbnails function I've written creates individual figure objects and then calls a function "draw_figure" to embed them, which I'll post below, but it's from the tk example I linked above:

def draw_figure(canvas, figure, loc=(0, 0)):
    """ Draw a matplotlib figure onto a Tk canvas

    loc: location of top-left corner of figure on canvas in pixels.
    Inspired by matplotlib source: lib/matplotlib/backends/backend_tkagg.py
    """
    figure_canvas_agg = FigureCanvasAgg(figure)
    figure_canvas_agg.draw()
    figure_x, figure_y, figure_w, figure_h = figure.bbox.bounds
    figure_w, figure_h = int(figure_w), int(figure_h)
    photo = PhotoImage(master=canvas, width=figure_w, height=figure_h)

    # Position: convert from top-left anchor to center anchor
    canvas.create_image(loc[0] + figure_w/2, loc[1] + figure_h/2, image=photo)

    # Unfortunately, there's no accessor for the pointer to the native renderer
    tkagg.blit(photo, figure_canvas_agg.get_renderer()._renderer, colormode=2)

    # Return a handle which contains a reference to the photo object
    # which must be kept live or else the picture disappears
    return photo

And this breaks in all sorts of ways.

I'm open to overhauling how everything is done, but I don't see examples that show how this sort of thing might work. The examples for the latest version of matplotlib all explain that you should use FigureCanvasTkAgg, but I don't exactly know how to use this if I already have an existing canvas with photos embedded.

Any help would be appreciated, and I can also explain more if necessary!

Embedding Images and matplotlib Plots together on on tk canvas

0 Answers