stop / start / pause in python matplotlib animation

This works...

anim = animation.FuncAnimation(fig, animfunc[,..other args])

#pause
anim.event_source.stop()

#unpause
anim.event_source.start()

Combining both the answers from @fred and @unutbu here, we can add an onClick function after creating the animation:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.animation as animation

fig = plt.figure()

def run_animation():
    anim_running = True

    def onClick(event):
        nonlocal anim_running
        if anim_running:
            anim.event_source.stop()
            anim_running = False
        else:
            anim.event_source.start()
            anim_running = True

    def animFunc( ...args... ):
        # Animation update function here

    fig.canvas.mpl_connect('button_press_event', onClick)

    anim = animation.FuncAnimation(fig, animFunc[,...other args])

run_animation()

Now we can simply stop or start the animation with clicks.

Here is a FuncAnimation example which I modified to pause on mouse clicks. Since the animation is driven by a generator function, simData, when the global variable pause is True, yielding the same data makes the animation appear paused.

The value of paused is toggled by setting up an event callback:

def onClick(event):
    global pause
    pause ^= True
fig.canvas.mpl_connect('button_press_event', onClick)

---

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

pause = False
def simData():
    t_max = 10.0
    dt = 0.05
    x = 0.0
    t = 0.0
    while t < t_max:
        if not pause:
            x = np.sin(np.pi*t)
            t = t + dt
        yield x, t

def onClick(event):
    global pause
    pause ^= True

def simPoints(simData):
    x, t = simData[0], simData[1]
    time_text.set_text(time_template%(t))
    line.set_data(t, x)
    return line, time_text

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111)
line, = ax.plot([], [], 'bo', ms=10)
ax.set_ylim(-1, 1)
ax.set_xlim(0, 10)

time_template = 'Time = %.1f s'
time_text = ax.text(0.05, 0.9, '', transform=ax.transAxes)
fig.canvas.mpl_connect('button_press_event', onClick)
ani = animation.FuncAnimation(fig, simPoints, simData, blit=False, interval=10,
    repeat=True)
fig.show()