particular prominent yticklabels

Question

Since the paraview legends look horrible when they appear inside a latex document, I want to replace them using Python's matplotlib and Nico's matplotlib2tikz package.

So I have compiled a python script matplotlib4colorbars, that produces a tikz file, which can then be included in a tex document. The tex part in a single file reads (you will have to download the included image img1.png to produce the output)

\documentclass[a4paper,10pt]{article}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=newest}

%opening
\begin{document}

\begin{figure}
    \newlength\figureheight
    \newlength\figurewidth
    \setlength\figureheight{8.5cm}
    \setlength\figurewidth{2cm}
%   \input{colorbar.tikz}
\begin{tikzpicture}

\begin{axis}[
title={$\mathbf{v_x}$},
xmin=0, xmax=0.07635,
ymin=-0.247, ymax=1.28,
axis on top,
scaled x ticks=false,
xtick={,,},
xticklabels={,,},
width=\figurewidth,
height=\figureheight
]
\addplot graphics [includegraphics cmd=\pgfimage,xmin=0, xmax=0.07635, ymin=-0.247, ymax=1.28] {img1.png};
\path [draw=black, fill opacity=0] (axis cs:13,1.28)--(axis cs:13,1.28);

\path [draw=black, fill opacity=0] (axis cs:0.07635,13)--(axis cs:0.07635,13);

\path [draw=black, fill opacity=0] (axis cs:13,-0.247)--(axis cs:13,-0.247);

\path [draw=black, fill opacity=0] (axis cs:0,13)--(axis cs:0,13);

\end{axis}

\end{tikzpicture}
\end{figure}

\end{document}

and it produces , which I find more attractive than the paraview legend

However, I could not reproduce the prominent yticklabels. So the question is, how to make that the pgfplot has the margin points as labels? And, how to make these margin labels a bit larger than the others?

Answer 1

You can use the feature of adding extra ticks. Include the key extra y ticks={<ymin>, <ymax>} where you can manually write the values <ymin> and <ymax> to the axis environment. You can also use extra y ticks={\pgfkeysvalueof{/pgfplots/ymin}, \pgfkeysvalueof{/pgfplots/ymax}} since you have already explicitly specified the limits ymin and ymax in the axis environment keys.

To make the extra ticklabels larger than the other ticklabels, specify a style with every extra y tick/.style={font=\large}.

So the axis environment should be something like

\begin{axis}[
title={$\mathbf{v_x}$},
xmin=0, xmax=0.07635,
ymin=-0.247, ymax=1.28,
axis on top,
scaled x ticks=false,
xtick={,,},
xticklabels={,,},
extra y ticks={
    \pgfkeysvalueof{/pgfplots/ymin},
    \pgfkeysvalueof{/pgfplots/ymax}
},
% alternatively
% extra y ticks={-0.247, 1.28},
every extra y tick/.style={
    font=\large,
    tick style=transparent, % avoid tick marks overlapping axis lines
    /pgf/number format/.cd,
    fixed,
    precision=3
},
width=\figurewidth,
height=\figureheight
]

Which gives the output

This causes the ticklabels to be very tight, so a possibility is to include yticklabel pos=right in the style every extra y tick/.style.

\begin{axis}[
title={$\mathbf{v_x}$},
xmin=0, xmax=0.07635,
ymin=-0.247, ymax=1.28,
axis on top,
scaled x ticks=false,
xtick={,,},
xticklabels={,,},
extra y ticks={
    \pgfkeysvalueof{/pgfplots/ymin},
    \pgfkeysvalueof{/pgfplots/ymax}
},
% alternatively
% extra y ticks={-0.247, 1.28},
every extra y tick/.style={
    font=\large,
    tick style=transparent, % avoid tick marks overlapping axis lines
    yticklabel pos=right,
    /pgf/number format/.cd,
    fixed,
    precision=3
},
width=\figurewidth,
height=\figureheight
]

This gives the output

If you want the bigger numbers on the left side, simply include

yticklabel pos=right,
every extra y tick/.style={
    font=\large,
    tick style=transparent, % avoid tick marks overlapping axis lines
    yticklabel pos=left,
    /pgf/number format/.cd,
    fixed,
    precision=3
}