my-mpl-style

Two small helpers that give matplotlib figures a publication-ready look:

• plot_rc() applies a consistent rcParams preset — serif fonts, Computer Modern math, a MATLAB-like colour cycle, optional grid and tick direction, plus 300 dpi / tight-bbox save defaults.
• ax_setting3D() turns a 3D axes into a clean orthographic box with explicit tick positions and a grey back edge.

Installation

pip install my-mpl-style

Requires Python 3.10+ and matplotlib 3.5+.

Quick start

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from my_mpl_style import plot_rc

plot_rc(grid=True)                 # serif + CM math, 300 dpi, tight bbox

fig, ax = plt.subplots()
ax.plot([0, 1, 2], [0, 1, 4], label="data")
ax.set(xlabel="$x$", ylabel="$y$")
ax.legend(frameon=False)

fig.savefig("figure.png")          # uses savefig.dpi=300, bbox="tight"

Every default can be overridden per call:

plot_rc(
    save_dpi=600,
    save_bbox="standard",
    save_pad_inches=0.1,
    font_family="sans-serif",
    font_serif=["DejaVu Sans"],
)

3D axes

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np
from my_mpl_style import ax_setting3D

a = np.linspace(-1, 1, 200)
x, y = np.meshgrid(a, a)
z = np.sin(np.pi * x) * np.exp(y)

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.add_subplot(111, projection="3d")
ax.plot_surface(x, y, z, linewidth=0, antialiased=True)
ax_setting3D(
    ax,
    (-1, 1), (-1, 1), (z.min(), z.max()),
    xticks=[-1, -0.5, 0, 0.5, 1],
    yticks=[-1, -0.5, 0, 0.5, 1],
    zticks=[-2, 0, 2],
    box_aspect=(1, 1, 1),
)
plt.show()

Ticks are passed to ax_setting3D() rather than set separately with ax.set(xticks=...), so the grey back edge is computed after the final limits and ticks are known.

API

plot_rc(...)

plot_rc(
    grid=False,
    tick_direction="out",
    tick_right=False,
    tick_top=False,
    save_dpi=300,
    save_bbox="tight",
    save_pad_inches=0.05,
    font_family="serif",
    font_serif=("Arial", "Helvetica", "DejaVu Sans"),
)

Updates the global matplotlib.rcParams, so it affects every figure created afterwards.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
grid	bool	False	Draw light major grid lines behind the artists.
tick_direction	"in" | "out"	"out"	Direction of the tick marks on both axes.
tick_right	bool	False	Also show ticks and labels on the right y axis.
tick_top	bool	False	Also show ticks and labels on the top x axis.
save_dpi	int	300	Resolution used by savefig.
save_bbox	"tight" | "standard"	"tight"	Bounding-box mode (stored as None for "standard").
save_pad_inches	float	0.05	Padding around the tight bbox, in inches.
font_family	str	"serif"	Value for font.family; "sans-serif" switches faces.
font_serif	Sequence[str]	("Arial", "Helvetica", "DejaVu Sans")	Font candidates for the serif family.

rcParams written by the preset:

rcParam	Value
font.family	font_family
font.serif	font_serif
mathtext.fontset	"cm"
axes.formatter.use_mathtext	True
axes.prop_cycle	6-colour palette: #0072BD, #D95319, #7E2F8E, #77AC30, #4DBEEE, #A2142F
xtick.direction, ytick.direction	tick_direction
axes.grid	grid
savefig.dpi, savefig.bbox, savefig.pad_inches	save_dpi, save_bbox, save_pad_inches
grid.linewidth, grid.alpha, axes.grid.which, axes.axisbelow	0.5, 0.3, "major", True — only when grid=True
ytick.right, ytick.labelright	True — only when tick_right=True
xtick.top, xtick.labeltop	True — only when tick_top=True

ax_setting3D(...)

ax_setting3D(
    ax,
    xlim, ylim, zlim,
    xticks, yticks, zticks,
    aspect="equal",
    box_aspect=None,
    xticks_pad=-5,
    yticks_pad=-5,
    zticks_pad=0,
)

Makes the panes transparent, thins the grid and tick marks, aligns the tick labels next to their axes, sets the tick positions and limits, and draws the grey back edge of the box.

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
ax	Axes3D	—	Axes created with projection="3d".
xlim, ylim, zlim	Sequence[float]	—	Axis limits.
xticks, yticks, zticks	Sequence[float]	—	Tick positions for each axis.
aspect	"auto" | "equal"	"equal"	Data aspect.
box_aspect	Sequence[float] | None	None	Ratio of the axes box along x, y and z.
xticks_pad, yticks_pad, zticks_pad	float	-5, -5, 0	Padding between axis and tick labels, in points.

Development

python -m venv .venv
.venv\Scripts\activate          # Windows
pip install -e ".[dev,examples]"

pytest
python examples/demo.py          # regenerate docs/images/demo.png
python -m build
twine check dist/*

examples/demo.py prepends src/ to sys.path, so it always renders with the checkout's code even when an older release is installed in site-packages.

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.

Example

2D lines and a 3D surface — examples/demo.py

Intersecting planes — examples/Intersecting_planes.py

Three orthogonal colour slices inside a single 3D box, each drawn with contourf and a shared colour bar.

Isosurfaces — examples/isosurface.py

Marching-cubes isosurfaces of the phase-field snapshots in data/, shaded with a LightSource. This example needs scikit-image and the data/*.npz files from the repository.

Triangular surfaces — examples/tri_surface.py

Triangular meshes loaded from data/cheese.npz and data/peanut.npz: a colour-mapped surface on the left and a shaded wireframe on the right.

License

MIT © 2026 chengtau