mpl_toolkits.axisartist.axis_artist#

Theaxis_artist module implements custom artists to draw axis elements(axis lines and labels, tick lines and labels, grid lines).

Axis lines and labels and tick lines and labels are managed by theAxisArtistclass; grid lines are managed by theGridlinesCollection class.

There is oneAxisArtist per Axis; it can be accessed throughtheaxis dictionary of the parent Axes (which should be aAxes), e.g.ax.axis["bottom"].

Children of the AxisArtist are accessed as attributes:.line and.labelfor the axis line and label,.major_ticks,.major_ticklabels,.minor_ticks,.minor_ticklabels for the tick lines and labels (e.g.ax.axis["bottom"].line).

Children properties (colors, fonts, line widths, etc.) can be set usingsetters, e.g.

# Make the major ticks of the bottom axis red.ax.axis["bottom"].major_ticks.set_color("red")

However, things like the locations of ticks, and their ticklabels need to bechanged from the side of the grid_helper.

axis_direction#

AxisArtist,AxisLabel,TickLabels have anaxis_direction attribute,which adjusts the location, angle, etc. Theaxis_direction must be one of"left", "right", "bottom", "top", and follows the Matplotlib convention forrectangular axis.

For example, for thebottom axis (the left and right is relative to thedirection of the increasing coordinate),

  • ticklabels and axislabel are on the right

  • ticklabels and axislabel have text angle of 0

  • ticklabels are baseline, center-aligned

  • axislabel is top, center-aligned

The text angles are actually relative to (90 + angle of the direction to theticklabel), which gives 0 for bottom axis.

Property

left

bottom

right

top

ticklabel location

left

right

right

left

axislabel location

left

right

right

left

ticklabel angle

90

0

-90

180

axislabel angle

180

0

0

180

ticklabel va

center

baseline

center

baseline

axislabel va

center

top

center

bottom

ticklabel ha

right

center

right

center

axislabel ha

right

center

right

center

Ticks are by default direct opposite side of the ticklabels. To make ticks tothe same side of the ticklabels,

ax.axis["bottom"].major_ticks.set_tick_out(True)

The following attributes can be customized (use theset_xxx methods):

Classes#

AttributeCopier()

AxisArtist(axes, helper[, offset, ...])

An artist which draws axis (a line along which the n-th axes coord is constant) line, ticks, tick labels, and axis label.

AxisLabel(*args[, axis_direction, axis])

Axis label.

GridlinesCollection(*args[, which, axis])

Collection of grid lines.

LabelBase(*args, **kwargs)

A base class forAxisLabel andTickLabels.

TickLabels(*[, axis_direction])

Tick labels.

Ticks(ticksize[, tick_out, axis])

Ticks are derived fromLine2D, and note that ticks themselves are markers.