Create animated normal distribution histogram as an emoji

animation.py

#! /usr/bin/env python3

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


content, bins = np.histogram(np.random.normal(size=10), bins=12, range=(-5, 5))

fig = plt.figure(figsize=(1, 1))
container = plt.bar(bins[:-1], content, width=bins[1] - bins[0], align='edge')
ax = plt.gca()
ax.tick_params(axis='y', direction='in')
ax.get_yaxis().set_ticklabels([])
plt.xticks(ticks=[])
plt.tight_layout(pad=0)


def update(i):
    print(i)
    size = 200 / (201 - i)
    content = np.histogram(np.random.normal(size=int(size)), bins=bins)[0]
    for patch, count in zip(container.patches, content):
        patch.set_height(patch.get_height() + count)
    ax.relim()
    ax.autoscale_view()
    return container, ax


if __name__ == '__main__':
    anim = FuncAnimation(fig, update, frames=range(200), interval=10)
    anim.save('animation.gif', dpi=80, writer='imagemagick')

This will look somewhat like