mpld3 lets you zoom in on figures created using matplotlib, using the d3.js library (Data-Driven Documents), see <d3js.org>.
mpld3 is installed on SageMathCloud. On your own computer you may need to install it from https://github.com/jakevdp/mpld3. mpld3 was written by Jake Vanderplas at UW, see also http://jakevdp.github.io/blog/2013/12/19/a-d3-viewer-for-matplotlib/.
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import mpld3
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mpld3.enable_notebook()
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x = linspace(0,1,101)
plot(x,sin(20*x**3),'o-')
plot(x,0*x,'k') # x-axis
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