MATLAB: How an I manipulate top and bottom x axes individually

axisbottomleftrighttickstop

I want to control the x axis top and bottom individually / separately.

Specifically I want to point the bottom x axis ticks out and the top x axis ticks in ( and point left y axis out and right y axis in).

Best Answer

Actually, dpb's suggestion of 2 axes should work as long as you don't turn "box on", and you may need to sync their positions if you do things like add axis labels, etc.

fig = figure;
ax(1) = axes(fig,'Color','none');
ax(2) = axes(fig,'Color','none');
ax(2).YAxisLocation = 'right';
ax(2).XAxisLocation = 'top';
ax(2).XAxis.TickDirection = 'out'
ax(1).YAxis.TickDirection = 'out'

Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to add tick just for the left axis

Here are two methods to show ticks only on the left axis.

Use yyaxis

This method creates a 2nd y axis on the right that is independently customizable and not used (unless you want to use it).

ax = axes(); 
box(ax, 'on')  % default

% Set axis tick length and direction
ax.XAxis.TickLength = [0 0];
ax.YAxis.TickDirection = 'both';
% Create 2nd y-axis on right and set y axes colors
% to match the x-axis color
yyaxis right
ax2 = gca(); 
ax.YAxis(1).Color = ax.XAxis.Color; 
ax.YAxis(2).Color = ax.XAxis.Color; 
% Remove ticks on right axis
ax.YAxis(2).TickValues = []; 
% Return control back to the left axes
yyaxis left

See image below for results.

Use xline and yline at axis limits

ax = axes(); 
box(ax, 'off')  % default
ax.XAxis.TickLength = [0 0];

If you want the y-ticks to be in both directions,

ax.YAxis.TickDirection = 'both';

If you want the right and upper axes lines but without ticks, you can make is appear as though 'box' is 'on' by setting the axis limits and adding a xline and yline.

% This syntax just sets the axis limits to their current value
xlim(ax, xlim(ax))
ylim(ax, ylim(ax))
% Set right and upper axis lines to same color as axes
xline(max(xlim(ax)), 'k-', 'Color', ax.XAxis.Color)
yline(max(ylim(ax)), 'k-', 'Color', ax.YAxis.Color)

If the axis limits change after this change, the pseudo-box lines will no longer be positioned correctly so this should happen after all other plotting and positioning is done on the axes. The first method is therefore safer.

Final result for both methods

MATLAB: How to show both top and bottom or left and right axes tick labels

The ability to specify top and bottom or left and right positions for the axes tick labels is not available in MATLAB.

To work around this issue you can add a transparent axes to your plot and specify the 'XAxisLocation' property as 'top' and the 'YAxisLocation' property as 'right', as shown in the following code:

plot(1:10)
box off
axes('xlim', [1 10], 'ylim', [1 10], 'color', 'none', 'YAxisLocation', 'right', 'XAxisLocation', 'top')

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to add tick just for the left axis

MATLAB: How to show both top and bottom or left and right axes tick labels

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