Simple Axis Tickel and Tick Directions

Introduction

This lab will guide you on how to create simple axis tick labels and tick directions using Matplotlib. The code will help you move the tick labels and ticks to inside the spines.

VM Tips

After the VM startup is done, click the top left corner to switch to the Notebook tab to access Jupyter Notebook for practice.

Sometimes, you may need to wait a few seconds for Jupyter Notebook to finish loading. The validation of operations cannot be automated because of limitations in Jupyter Notebook.

If you face issues during learning, feel free to ask Labby. Provide feedback after the session, and we will promptly resolve the problem for you.

Skills Graph

Import Libraries

Import the necessary libraries to create the plot.

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import mpl_toolkits.axisartist as axisartist

Setup Axes Function

Create a function to set up the axes. This function will set the x and y tick values.

def setup_axes(fig, pos):
    ax = fig.add_subplot(pos, axes_class=axisartist.Axes)
    ax.set_yticks([0.2, 0.8])
    ax.set_xticks([0.2, 0.8])
    return ax

Create the Figure and Subplots

Create the figure and two subplots using the setup_axes() function.

fig = plt.figure(figsize=(5, 2))
fig.subplots_adjust(wspace=0.4, bottom=0.3)

ax1 = setup_axes(fig, 121)
ax1.set_xlabel("ax1 X-label")
ax1.set_ylabel("ax1 Y-label")

ax2 = setup_axes(fig, 122)
ax2.set_xlabel("ax2 X-label")
ax2.set_ylabel("ax2 Y-label")

Move Tick Labels Inside the Spines

Move the tick labels to inside the spines for the first subplot using the invert_ticklabel_direction() method.

ax1.axis[:].invert_ticklabel_direction()

Move Ticks Inside the Spines

Move the ticks to inside the spines for the second subplot using the major_ticks.set_tick_out() method.

ax2.axis[:].major_ticks.set_tick_out(False)

Display the Plot

Display the plot using the show() method.

plt.show()

Summary

This lab has demonstrated how to create simple axis tick labels and tick directions using Matplotlib. By following the step-by-step instructions, you can easily move the tick labels and ticks to inside the spines of the plot.