Animate Interactive plotly Graph in Python (2 Examples)

Hi! This tutorial will show you how to animate an interactive plotly graph in Python.

Here is an overview:

1) Install & Import plotly

2) Create Sample Data

3) Example 1: Animated Scatter Plot

4) Example 2: Animated Bar Plot

5) Video, Further Resources & Summary

Let’s jump into the Python code!

Install & Import plotly

To install and import plotly, run the lines of code below in your preferred Python programming IDE:

# install plotly
pip install plotly
 
# import plotly
import plotly.express as px

Now that we have installed and imported plotly into our Python environment, we can make use of its plot-building functions to build an interactive graph.

However, though, we need data to visualize.

Create Sample Data

We will make use of the gapminder dataset, which is shipped along with the plotly package in Python.

Therefore, to load and preview the first 10 rows of the DataFrame, run the lines of code below:

df = px.data.gapminder()
 
df.head(10)
 
#          country  continent	year	lifeExp	   pop	        gdpPercap  iso_alpha  iso_num
#0	Afghanistan	Asia	1952	28.801	8425333	        779.445314	AFG	4
#1	Afghanistan	Asia	1957	30.332	9240934	        820.853030	AFG	4
#2	Afghanistan	Asia	1962	31.997	10267083	853.100710	AFG	4
#3	Afghanistan	Asia	1967	34.020	11537966	836.197138	AFG	4
#4	Afghanistan	Asia	1972	36.088	13079460	739.981106	AFG	4
#5	Afghanistan	Asia	1977	38.438	14880372	786.113360	AFG	4
#6	Afghanistan	Asia	1982	39.854	12881816	978.011439	AFG	4
#7	Afghanistan	Asia	1987	40.822	13867957	852.395945	AFG	4
#8	Afghanistan	Asia	1992	41.674	16317921	649.341395	AFG	4
#9	Afghanistan	Asia	1997	41.763	22227415	635.341351	AFG	4

With the dataset loaded, we can now build animated plotly graphs.

Example 1: Animated Scatter Plot

In this first example, we will build an animated scatterplot:

fig = px.scatter(df, 
                 x="gdpPercap", 
                 y="lifeExp", 
                 animation_frame="year", 
                 animation_group="country",
                 size="pop", 
                 color="continent", 
                 hover_name="country",
                 log_x=True, 
                 size_max=55, 
                 range_x=[100,100000], 
                 range_y=[25,90])
 
fig.show()

Here, we pass the DataFrame df and plot gdpPercap on the x-axis and lifeExp on the y-axis.

The animation is based on the year column and grouped by country, resulting in a dynamic representation of life expectancy and GDP per capita over time.

The size of the data points is determined by the pop column, and different colors represent different continents.

The country names are displayed when you hover over the data points. Additionally, the x-axis is displayed in a logarithmic scale, and the x and y-axis ranges are constrained.

Finally, fig.show() is used to display the animated scatter plot.

Example 2: Animated Bar Plot

In this second example, we will build an animated bar plot using the dataset:

fig = px.bar(df, x="continent", y="pop", color="continent",
  animation_frame="year", animation_group="country", range_y=[0,4000000000])
 
fig.show()

In the above example, we create a bar chart where each bar represents the population (pop) of a country, grouped by continent.

The animation is driven by the year column, with each frame showing how populations change over time. The range_y = parameter is used to set the y-axis range from 0 to 4billion.

After that, we use fig.show() to display the animated bar chart.

You can build and animate other graphs as well. The key thing is that your data should contain a time element over which the animation frames will run.

Video, Further Resources & Summary

Do you need more explanations on how to animate interactive plotly graphs in Python? Then you should have a look at the following YouTube video of the Statistics Globe YouTube channel.

In the video, we explain in some more detail how to animate interactive plotly graphs in Python.

The YouTube video will be added soon.

So with that, we have demonstrated how to animate interactive plotly graphs in Python. Furthermore, you could have a look at some of the other interesting plotly in Python tutorials on Statistics Globe:

This post has shown how to animate interactive plotly graphs in Python. I hope you found it helpful! In case you have further questions, you may leave a comment below.

This page was created in collaboration with Ifeanyi Idiaye. You might check out Ifeanyi’s personal author page to read more about his academic background and the other articles he has written for the Statistics Globe website.