title: Embed an interactive 3D plot in PySide
body: <p>What is the best way to embed an interactive 3D plot in a PySide GUI?  I have looked at some examples on here of 2D plots embedded in a  PySide GUI:</p>
  
  <p><a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/6723527/getting-pyside-to-work-with-matplotlib">Getting PySide to Work With Matplotlib</a><br>
  <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16188037/matplotlib-interactive-graph-embedded-in-pyqt">Matplotlib Interactive Graph Embedded In PyQt</a><br>
  <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16824718/python-matplotlib-pyside-fast-timetrace-scrolling/16825869#16825869">Python/Matplotlib/Pyside Fast Timetrace Scrolling</a></p>
  
  <p>However, the functionality that I'm looking for is not quite the same.  The figure needs to rotate and zoom based on mouse input from the user in the same way as if it were drawn in a separate window.  </p>
  
  <p>I'm trying to avoid having to go in manually and write functions for transforming mouse click + move into a figure rotate and canvas repaint--even if that's the only way, I'm not even sure how to do that.  But I figure (no pun intended) that there should be a way to reuse the functionality already present for creating 3D plots in their own windows.</p>
  
  <p>Here's my code.  It works as intended, but the plot is not interactive.  Any advice is appreciated!</p>
  
  <p><strong>EDIT:</strong> I fixed the use of FigureCanvas according to <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/users/380231/tcaswell">tcaswell</a>'s corrections.  I also added a bit from the matplotlib <a href="http://matplotlib.org/users/event_handling.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Event Handling and Picking</a> documentation to show that the figure seems to be getting the events upon mouseclick.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Final Edit:</strong> The following code now produces the plot as desired.</p>
  
  <pre><code># -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
  
  from PySide import QtCore, QtGui
  import numpy as np
  
  import matplotlib
  import sys
  # specify the use of PySide
  matplotlib.rcParams['backend.qt4'] = "PySide"
  
  # import the figure canvas for interfacing with the backend
  from matplotlib.backends.backend_qt4agg import FigureCanvasQTAgg \
                                                                  as FigureCanvas
  
  # import 3D plotting
  from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D    # @UnusedImport
  from matplotlib.figure import Figure
  
  
  # Auto-generated code from QT Designer ----------------------------------------
  
  class Ui_MainWindow(object):
      def setupUi(self, MainWindow):
          MainWindow.setObjectName("MainWindow")
          MainWindow.resize(750, 497)
          self.centralwidget = QtGui.QWidget(MainWindow)
          self.centralwidget.setObjectName("centralwidget")
          self.horizontalLayout_2 = QtGui.QHBoxLayout(self.centralwidget)
          self.horizontalLayout_2.setObjectName("horizontalLayout_2")
          self.frame_2 = QtGui.QFrame(self.centralwidget)
          self.frame_2.setFrameShape(QtGui.QFrame.StyledPanel)
          self.frame_2.setFrameShadow(QtGui.QFrame.Raised)
          self.frame_2.setObjectName("frame_2")
          self.verticalLayout = QtGui.QVBoxLayout(self.frame_2)
          self.verticalLayout.setObjectName("verticalLayout")
          self.label = QtGui.QLabel(self.frame_2)
          self.label.setObjectName("label")
          self.verticalLayout.addWidget(self.label)
          self.label_2 = QtGui.QLabel(self.frame_2)
          self.label_2.setObjectName("label_2")
          self.verticalLayout.addWidget(self.label_2)
          self.lineEdit = QtGui.QLineEdit(self.frame_2)
          sizePolicy = QtGui.QSizePolicy(
                              QtGui.QSizePolicy.Minimum, QtGui.QSizePolicy.Fixed)
          sizePolicy.setHorizontalStretch(0)
          sizePolicy.setVerticalStretch(0)
          sizePolicy.setHeightForWidth(
                                  self.lineEdit.sizePolicy().hasHeightForWidth())
          self.lineEdit.setSizePolicy(sizePolicy)
          self.lineEdit.setObjectName("lineEdit")
          self.verticalLayout.addWidget(self.lineEdit)
          spacerItem = QtGui.QSpacerItem(
                  20, 40, QtGui.QSizePolicy.Minimum, QtGui.QSizePolicy.Expanding)
          self.verticalLayout.addItem(spacerItem)
          self.horizontalLayout_2.addWidget(self.frame_2)
          self.frame_plot = QtGui.QFrame(self.centralwidget)
          self.frame_plot.setMinimumSize(QtCore.QSize(500, 0))
          self.frame_plot.setFrameShape(QtGui.QFrame.StyledPanel)
          self.frame_plot.setFrameShadow(QtGui.QFrame.Raised)
          self.frame_plot.setObjectName("frame_plot")
          self.horizontalLayout_2.addWidget(self.frame_plot)
          MainWindow.setCentralWidget(self.centralwidget)
  
          self.retranslateUi(MainWindow)
          QtCore.QMetaObject.connectSlotsByName(MainWindow)
  
      def retranslateUi(self, MainWindow):
          MainWindow.setWindowTitle(QtGui.QApplication.translate(
              "MainWindow", "MainWindow", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
          self.label.setText(QtGui.QApplication.translate("MainWindow",
                      "This is a qlabel.", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
          self.label_2.setText(QtGui.QApplication.translate("MainWindow",
              "And this is another one.", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
          self.lineEdit.setText(QtGui.QApplication.translate("MainWindow",
                      "Text goes here.", None, QtGui.QApplication.UnicodeUTF8))
  
  # Auto-generated code from QT Designer ----------------------------------------
  
  class MainWindow(QtGui.QMainWindow):
      def __init__(self, parent=None):
          super(MainWindow, self).__init__(parent)
          # intialize the window
          self.ui = Ui_MainWindow()
          self.ui.setupUi(self)
  
          # create the matplotlib widget and put it in the frame on the right
          self.ui.plotWidget = Mpwidget(parent=self.ui.frame_plot)
  
  class Mpwidget(FigureCanvas):
      def __init__(self, parent=None):
  
          self.figure = Figure(facecolor=(0, 0, 0))
          super(Mpwidget, self).__init__(self.figure)
          self.setParent(parent)
  
          # plot random 3D data
          self.axes = self.figure.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')
          self.data = np.random.random((3, 100))
          self.axes.plot(self.data[0, :], self.data[1, :], self.data[2, :])
  
  if __name__ == "__main__":
      app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
      mw = MainWindow()
      mw.show()
  
      # adjust the frame size so that it fits right after the window is shown
      s = mw.ui.frame_plot.size()
      mw.ui.plotWidget.setGeometry(1, 1, s.width() - 2, s.height() - 2)
  
      sys.exit(app.exec_())
  </code></pre>