How to pause matplotlib animation for some seconds(without using any mouse clicks)?

Question

I have created a script that animates two scatter points and a line in between them. Here is the gif:

And here is the script used for animation:

from a import get_points
import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.animation as animation
import time

fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(12,8))
ax.set(xlim=(0,104), ylim=(0,68))

x_start, y_start = (50, 35)
x_end, y_end = (90, 45)

x_1, y_1 = get_points(x_start, y_start, x_end, y_end, 0.55)
x_2, y_2 = get_points(x_end, y_end, x_start, y_start, 0.55)

x = np.linspace(x_1, x_2, 20)
y = np.linspace(y_1, y_2, 20)

sc_1 = ax.scatter([], [], color="green", zorder=4)
line, = ax.plot([], [], color="crimson", zorder=4)
sc_2 = ax.scatter([], [], color="gold", zorder=4)
title = ax.text(50, 65, "", bbox={'facecolor':'w', 'alpha':0.5, 'pad':5}, ha="center")

def animate(i):
    ## plot scatter point
    sc_1.set_offsets([x_start, y_start])

    ## plot line
    line.set_data(x[:i], y[:i])

    ## plot scatter point
    if i == len(x):
        sc_2.set_offsets([x_end, y_end])

    return sc_1, line, sc_2, title,

ani = animation.FuncAnimation(  
    fig=fig, func=animate, interval=50, blit=True)  

plt.show()

What I want is: to pause the animation for 2 seconds when the first scatter point shows up then animate the line and when the line animation is complete pause animation for 2 more seconds and after that display the scatter point.

What should I change in my code to get the required animation?

Answer 1

Answer

You can do it with plt.pause().
I simplified a bit your code in order to use it without the unknown a module (and its get_points() function).

Code

import numpy as np
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.animation as animation

fig, ax = plt.subplots(figsize=(12,8))
ax.set(xlim=(0,104), ylim=(0,68))

x_start, y_start = (50, 35)
x_end, y_end = (90, 45)

N = 20
x = np.linspace(x_start, x_end, N)
y = np.linspace(y_start, y_end, N)

sc_1 = ax.scatter([], [], color="green", zorder=4)
line, = ax.plot([], [], color="crimson", zorder=4)
sc_2 = ax.scatter([], [], color="gold", zorder=4)


def animate(i):
    sc_1.set_offsets([x_start, y_start])
    if i == 1:
        plt.pause(2)

    line.set_data(x[:i], y[:i])

    if i == len(x):
        plt.pause(2)
        sc_2.set_offsets([x_end, y_end])

    return sc_1, line, sc_2,

ani = animation.FuncAnimation(fig=fig, func=animate, interval=50, blit=True)

plt.show()