Matplotlib 3D: Remove axis ticks & draw upper edge border?

Question

It seems like some of the methods that work for matplotlib 2D might not be working for matplotlib 3D. I'm not sure.

I'd like to remove the tick marks from all axes, and extend the edge color from the bottom and sides to the top as well. The farthest I have gotten is being able to draw the ticks as white, which looks bad as they are rendered on top of the edge lines.

Below is a big chunk of self-contained code that results in the following image. Any help is much appreciated!

import numpy as np
import matplotlib as mpl
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import animation
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D

mpl.rcParams['ytick.color'] = 'white'
#mpl.rcParams['ytick.left'] = False

sample = np.random.random_integers(low=1,high=5, size=(10,3))

# Create a figure and a 3D Axes
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(5,5))

ax = Axes3D(fig)

#ax.w_xaxis.set_tick_params(color='white')

#ax.axes.tick_params
ax.axes.tick_params(bottom=False, color='blue')
##['size', 'width', 'color', 'tickdir', 'pad', 'labelsize', 
##'labelcolor', 'zorder', 'gridOn', 'tick1On', 'tick2On', 
##'label1On', 'label2On', 'length', 'direction', 'left', 'bottom', 
##'right', 'top', 'labelleft', 'labelbottom', 
##'labelright', 'labeltop', 'labelrotation']

colors = np.mean(sample[:, :], axis=1)

ax.scatter(sample[:,0], sample[:,1], sample[:,2],

           marker='o', s=20, c=colors, alpha=1)

ax.tick_params(color='red')

frame1 = plt.gca()
frame1.axes.xaxis.set_ticklabels([])
frame1.axes.yaxis.set_ticklabels([])
frame1.axes.zaxis.set_ticklabels([])
#frame1.axes.yaxis.set_tick_params(color='white')

Answer 1

To answer the first bit of the question, about tick removal, it's probably easiest to just disable the tick lines:

for line in ax.xaxis.get_ticklines():
    line.set_visible(False)
for line in ax.yaxis.get_ticklines():
    line.set_visible(False)
for line in ax.zaxis.get_ticklines():
    line.set_visible(False)

E.g.:

import numpy as np
import matplotlib as mpl
from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
from matplotlib import animation
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D


sample = np.random.random_integers(low=1,high=5, size=(10,3))

# Create a figure and a 3D Axes
fig = plt.figure(figsize=(5,5))

ax = Axes3D(fig)

colors = np.mean(sample[:, :], axis=1)

ax.scatter(sample[:,0], sample[:,1], sample[:,2],

           marker='o', s=20, c=colors, alpha=1)


ax = plt.gca()
ax.xaxis.set_ticklabels([])
ax.yaxis.set_ticklabels([])
ax.zaxis.set_ticklabels([])

for line in ax.xaxis.get_ticklines():
    line.set_visible(False)
for line in ax.yaxis.get_ticklines():
    line.set_visible(False)
for line in ax.zaxis.get_ticklines():
    line.set_visible(False)