Can Makie plot axis in "zebra style"?

Ronis_BR · July 15, 2025, 1:41pm

Hi!

A design pattern very common when plotting maps is to use “zebra style” in the axes like this:

Is it possible to create this type of axes in Makie?

raman_kumar · July 15, 2025, 1:44pm

Is there any special advantage of using such axes? You can simply use ticks.

Ronis_BR · July 15, 2025, 2:09pm

I am not sure, but people who work with maps often ask me to plot the information using this kind of pattern.

jules · July 15, 2025, 2:12pm

The answer to “can it technically” is of course yes, there will be some way to plot patterns like that on the edge of an Axis. But it sounds like this is something that GeoMakie should ideally support as I’ve only ever seen it used with maps. @asinghvi17

Ronis_BR · July 15, 2025, 2:13pm

Yes! I fully agree! This kind of axes are only used in maps.

lupemba · July 15, 2025, 3:07pm

I think the style might come from Generic Mapping Tools GitHub - GenericMappingTools/GMT.jl: Generic Mapping Tools Library Wrapper for Julia

Maybe it is worth considering if the Makie community can work with the GMT community and not just copy the styles.

CC @joa-quim

Ronis_BR · July 15, 2025, 3:37pm

Actually this style is used in many different software (ArcGIS, IDL, etc).

asinghvi17 · July 15, 2025, 3:56pm

Hmm, we could in theory, but it would be a bit of work. Note that the shaded regions fit in with the ticks, this is a nontrivial implementation…

Ronis_BR · July 15, 2025, 4:09pm

Ok! Should I open an issue? If so, in which repository?

joa-quim · July 15, 2025, 5:06pm

This style is quite common in maps and, from experience, was very useful for navigation planing from times of paper maps. Now is more a question of style, I guess. I would be glad to collaborate but this style in GMT is quite intrinsic and deeply connected to the PostScript library that GMT uses. Not sure how this could be used by others that do not use PS,

asinghvi17 · July 15, 2025, 6:45pm

Probably GeoMakie? But this is also sort of a Makie issue.

asinghvi17 · July 15, 2025, 6:46pm

@joa-quim would you happen to know how those spines are built? Does it assume you have borders that are a lat-long box? That would be very simple to do. But borders that are in some projected space would be more complicated…

joa-quim · July 15, 2025, 7:22pm

Well, a disclaimer first. Most of the GMT was written by Paul Wessel, which very sadly passed away last year. I did many contributions but few on its mapping side.

My recall from debug sessions is that the fancy frame (that’s how GMT calls it) is made by drawing a thick black line and that white patches are overlapped to give it that pajama look. The length of the patch white lines are calculated using the map scale (that is how they mach the tick marks so well). All GMT maps/figures are done at a certain map-scale (or width in cm/inc that are internally converted to a map-scale). This works in both Cartesian or projected space. See for example this Antarctica example. Off course, projected coordinates are converted to linear paper units so all is in fact Cartesian.

EDIT:
C functions that do frame plotting

github.com/GenericMappingTools/gmt

src/gmt_plot.c

master


      
          				if (GMT->current.map.frame.side[E_SIDE] & GMT_AXIS_TICK) {
          					gmt_geo_to_xy (GMT, e, v1, &x1, &y1);
          					gmt_geo_to_xy (GMT, e, v2, &x2, &y2);
          					PSL_plotsegment (PSL, x1+0.5*scale[k]*shift_e[0], y1+0.5*scale[k]*shift_e[1], x2+0.5*scale[k]*shift_e[0], y2+0.5*scale[k]*shift_e[1]);
          				}
          			}
          		}
          	}
          }
          
          GMT_LOCAL void gmtplot_fancy_frame_straight_outline (struct GMT_CTRL *GMT, struct PSL_CTRL *PSL, double lonA, double latA, double lonB, double latB, unsigned int side, bool secondary_too) {
          	unsigned int k, kn = 1, axis;
          	double scale = 1.0, x[2], y[2], angle, s, c, dx, dy, Ldx, Ldy, f0 = 1.0, f1 = 1.0;
          	struct GMT_PLOT_AXIS_ITEM *T = NULL;
          
          	if (!GMT->current.map.frame.side[side]) return;	/* Do not draw this frame side */
          	switch (side) {	/* Determine if there are missing partner sides that invalidates extensions */
          		case S_SIDE:
          			if (!GMT->current.map.frame.side[W_SIDE]) f0 = 0;
          			if (!GMT->current.map.frame.side[E_SIDE]) f1 = 0;
          			break;

github.com/GenericMappingTools/gmt

src/gmt_plot.c

master


      
          	PSL_plotsegment (PSL, x[0]-f0*Ldx, y[0]-f0*Ldy, x[1]+f1*Ldx, y[1]+f1*Ldy);
          	for (k = 0; k < kn; k++) {
          		x[0] += scale*dx;
          		y[0] += scale*dy;
          		x[1] += scale*dx;
          		y[1] += scale*dy;
          		PSL_plotsegment (PSL, x[0]-f0*Ldx, y[0]-f0*Ldy, x[1]+f1*Ldx, y[1]+f1*Ldy);
          	}
          }
          
          GMT_LOCAL void gmtplot_fancy_frame_curved_outline (struct GMT_CTRL *GMT, struct PSL_CTRL *PSL, double lonA, double latA, double lonB, double latB, unsigned int side, bool secondary_too) {
          	double scale[2] = {1.0, 1.0}, escl, x1, x2, y1, y2, radius, r_inc, az1, az2, da0, da, width, s, fw, fe;
          
          	if (!GMT->current.map.frame.side[side]) return;	/* This side is inactive */
          	fw = (GMT->current.map.frame.side[W_SIDE]) ? 1.0 : 0.0;	/* Only extend if W side is plotted */
          	fe = (GMT->current.map.frame.side[E_SIDE]) ? 1.0 : 0.0;	/* Only extend if E side is plotted */
          	if (secondary_too) scale[0] = scale[1] = 0.5;
          	width = GMT->current.setting.map_frame_width;
          	escl = (GMT->current.setting.map_frame_type == GMT_IS_ROUNDED) ? 0.0 : 1.0;	/* Want rounded corners */
          	gmt_geo_to_xy (GMT, lonA, latA, &x1, &y1);
          	gmt_geo_to_xy (GMT, lonB, latB, &x2, &y2);

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Can Makie plot axis in "zebra style"?

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