On Dec 19, 2008, at 7:52 AM, John Hunter wrote: > Could you post the script you are using to do the profiling? The call > to subplot/plot/bar should not trigger a draw, unless "interactive" is > set to True > > http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/users/shell.html > > Interactive is not the best word, but it is the rc parameter meaning > "you are using mpl from the interactive prompt and want every pyplot > command to update the plot". If the macosx backend is not doing this > it should. If tkagg is issuing draw commands on pyplot commands when > interactive is False, it is a bug that we should be able to fix. The interactive backends (wx, tk, gtk) all handle draw_idle in a way which delays the drawing until there are no more commands to run. By changing draw_if_interactive to use draw_idle instead of draw, wouldn't this automatically smooth over the performance issues without the user having to toggle interactive in their scripts? - Paul