Remove border from matplotlib 3D pane

Question

I would like to remove the borders from my 3D scene as described below. Any idea how to do that?

Here the code to generate the current scene:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D

# Create figure
plt.style.use('dark_background') # Dark theme
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')

# Make panes transparent
ax.xaxis.pane.fill = False # Left pane
ax.yaxis.pane.fill = False # Right pane

# Remove grid lines
ax.grid(False)

# Remove tick labels
ax.set_xticklabels([])
ax.set_yticklabels([])
ax.set_zticklabels([])

# Print chart
file_path = 'charts/3d.png'
fig.savefig(file_path, bbox_inches='tight', pad_inches=0.05, transparent=True)

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 22 '20 at 13:17

I usually set the alpha channel to 0 for spines and panes, and finally I remove the ticks:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D

# Create figure
plt.style.use('dark_background') # Dark theme
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')

# Make panes transparent
ax.xaxis.pane.fill = False # Left pane
ax.yaxis.pane.fill = False # Right pane

# Remove grid lines
ax.grid(False)

# Remove tick labels
ax.set_xticklabels([])
ax.set_yticklabels([])
ax.set_zticklabels([])

# Transparent spines
ax.w_xaxis.line.set_color((1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0))
ax.w_yaxis.line.set_color((1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0))
ax.w_zaxis.line.set_color((1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0))

# Transparent panes
ax.w_xaxis.set_pane_color((1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0))
ax.w_yaxis.set_pane_color((1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0))

# No ticks
ax.set_xticks([]) 
ax.set_yticks([]) 
ax.set_zticks([])

You're a magician! I'm not sure why someone voted down on your answer but it worked like a charm for me. Thank you so much! — Alexis.Rolland, Jan 22 '20 at 13:51
I have one more question here if you have any clue :p https://stackoverflow.com/questions/59890982/reduce-height-of-subplot-in-matplotlib I'll continue to investigate on my side — Alexis.Rolland, Jan 24 '20 at 05:47

Hugo Esteves de Castro · Answer 2 · 2020-01-22T10:39:46.230

2

Try to add the following parameter when creating the figure

plt.figure(frameon=False)

EDIT: The lines containing comments are the ones i added/changed

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np # Imported numpy for random data
from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D

plt.style.use('dark_background')
fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection='3d')

ax.xaxis.pane.fill = False
ax.yaxis.pane.fill = False


ax.set_xticklabels([])
ax.set_yticklabels([])
ax.set_zticklabels([])

# Remove the axis
plt.axis('off')

# Random data to illustrate
zdata = 15 * np.random.random(100)
xdata = np.sin(zdata) + 0.1 * np.random.randn(100)
ydata = np.cos(zdata) + 0.1 * np.random.randn(100)
ax.scatter3D(xdata, ydata, zdata, c=zdata, cmap='Greens')

# Print chart (savefig overwrites some styling configs, better this way)
with open('3d.png', 'wb') as outfile:
    fig.canvas.print_png(outfile)

edited Jan 22 '20 at 10:39

answered Jan 22 '20 at 10:12

Hugo Esteves de Castro

21
3

Thank you Hugo, it does not seem to work. Could you please illustrate how you would add it in the complete code snippet above? Maybe I'm doing something wrong. – Alexis.Rolland Jan 22 '20 at 10:19
1

Hello Alexis, as far as I know, the lines you pretend to remove are part of the axis, to remove them you must remove all the axis, to do such, ill put a snippet in a new comment due to size restrictions – Hugo Esteves de Castro Jan 22 '20 at 10:35
Thanks Hugo, the `plt.axis('off')` removes the axis indeed but it also remove the plane at the bottom of the chart which mean my chart looks completely transparent. I'll try to play a bit with this. – Alexis.Rolland Jan 22 '20 at 10:51
Sorry I couldn't be of more help – Hugo Esteves de Castro Jan 22 '20 at 10:55
Thank you for looking into it. I still learned some stuff with your code snippet :) – Alexis.Rolland Jan 22 '20 at 11:11

Remove border from matplotlib 3D pane

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