title: How to get azimuth and elevation from a matplotlib figure
body: <p>I'm plotting a group of 3D points using <code>matplotlib.pyplot</code> and <code>numpy</code>. Rotating the image using the mouse produces the azimuthal and elevation angles at the bottom of the figure window. </p>
  
  <p>How can I get at these values programatically so that I can use them in subsequent calculations, for example when the mouse is released or I click a button on the screen. </p>
  
  <p>I'm using python 2.7.5. My code below should illustrate the problem.</p>
  
  <pre><code>import numpy as np
  
  import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
  
  from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
  
  mol=np.random.rand(6,3)*10.0
  
  fig3d = plt.figure(figsize = ( 6.5, 6.5 ) )
  
  fig3d.canvas.set_window_title('3D')
  
  ax3d = fig3d.gca(  projection='3d')
  
  ax3d.scatter( mol[:,0], mol[:,1], mol[:,2], s=200)  
  
  plt.show()
  </code></pre>