Problem

I usually want to zoom into some specific regions of a plot. Using the "rectangle" method feels slow given that Google Maps and similar services allow zooming using the mouse wheel.

Proposed Solution

There are some work-arounds available on SO and gists. But I would love to see a standard solution which simply works out of the box.

Additional context and prior art

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11551049/matplotlib-plot-zooming-with-scroll-wheel