Matplotlib

It has two major styles of using the library:

• An explicit "Axes" interface that uses methods on a Figure or Axes object to create other Artists, and build a visualization step by step. This has also been called an "object-oriented" interface.

• An implicit "pyplot" interface that keeps track of the last Figure and Axes created, and adds Artists to the object it thinks the user wants.

It is recommended that the pyplot interface be used only for the creation of figures and subsequent actions then be performed through the explicit Axes objects themselves so it is clear which object will be affected by a given call.

Warning: Matplotlib expects to be used in a scripting environment where figures are generally re-created should some aspect of the code change. If embedded within a larger application and the figure state can be affected in other ways then it can be challenging to have access to enough internal state to alter the figures as required without resorting to "private" methods that are not off limits in Python.