title: Matplotlib: using a figure object to initialize a plot
body: <p>I am building a class of plot tools for a specific experiment.
  I currently have two plot methods, a static plot using imshow(), and a "movie" format also
  using imshow() .</p>
  
  <p>Both methods and any future methods, get parameters that are the same for any specific plotting method that I might write. I have all those parameters in a config object at the time the plot class is used.</p>
  
  <p>I don't want to rewrite code in every plot method. I would like to initialize an object (AxesImage I think) that will have these args set: vmin, vmax, extent_dim, Xlocs, Xlabels, Ylocs, Ylabels.</p>
  
  <p>Then I just pass that object to various methods that do some other specific thing.
  I don't understand how to do this...</p>
  
  <pre><code>import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
  
  data = data_dict[type] # could be real part of a complex number, phase, or the mag...
  v_min, v_max = self.get_data_type_scale(data_dict, Type)
  freq = data_dict['freq']
  
  # essentially sets the aspect of the plot since the x and y resolutions could be different   
  extent_dim = self._get_extent(2)
  # gets the labels for physical dimensions of the experiment
  Xlocs,Xlabels,Ylocs,Ylabels = self._get_ticks(5,5,extent_dim)
  
  # in the guts of a plot method, the basic idea is the call below.  
  
  plt.imshow(data[0,:,:],cmap='jet',vmin=v_min,...
  vmax=v_max,origin='lower', extent = extent_dim)
  
  plt.title('Type:  %s  Freq: %.3e Hz' %(Type,data_dict['freq'][0]) )
  plt.xticks(Xlocs, Xlabels)
  plt.yticks(Ylocs,Ylabels)
  </code></pre>