Matplotlib Plot Array Size Limit?

I've created a program that retrieves data from a device on the serial port every half second or so. It then appends that data to the array that sets the data points and then updat

Solution 1:

Using the code below I was able to get matplotlib to show a simple graph of ten million points. I suspect the problem isn't with the array size.

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

nsteps = 10000000
draws = np.random.randint(0,2,size=nsteps)
steps = np.where(draws>0,1,-1)
walk = steps.cumsum()
plt.plot(np.arange(nsteps), np.array(walk), 'r-')
plt.title("Big Set Random Walk with $\pm1$ steps")
plt.show()

Solution 2:

There seems to be a some limit. I just tried

import pylab
import numpy as np

n = 10000000 # my code works fine for n = 1000000

x = np.random.normal(0,1,n)

pylab.plot(x)

pylab.show()

And got the following error:

OverflowError: Agg rendering complexity exceeded. Consider downsampling or decimating your data.