.. _pylab_examples-to_numeric:

pylab_examples example code: to_numeric.py
==========================================



.. plot:: /home/mdboom/Work/builds/matplotlib/doc/mpl_examples/pylab_examples/to_numeric.py

::

    #!/usr/bin/env python
    """
    Use backend agg to access the figure canvas as an RGB string and then
    convert it to an array and pass the string it to PIL for
    rendering
    """
    
    import pylab
    from matplotlib.backends.backend_agg import FigureCanvasAgg
    
    try:
        from PIL import Image
    except ImportError:
        raise SystemExit("PIL must be installed to run this example")
    
    pylab.plot([1,2,3])
    
    canvas = pylab.get_current_fig_manager().canvas
    
    agg = canvas.switch_backends(FigureCanvasAgg)
    agg.draw()
    s = agg.tostring_rgb()
    
    # get the width and the height to resize the matrix
    l,b,w,h = agg.figure.bbox.bounds
    w, h = int(w), int(h)
    
    
    X = pylab.fromstring(s, pylab.uint8)
    X.shape = h, w, 3
    
    im = Image.fromstring( "RGB", (w,h), s)
    im.show()
    
    

Keywords: python, matplotlib, pylab, example, codex (see :ref:`how-to-search-examples`)