Is it possible to plot the ticks but not the axes?

Is it possible to plot the small tics marks perpendicular to the axes, but not the x and y-axes?

[Mr M.]

Its very strange. Because it is possible to draw the axes without tics :) And how to change the visibility of the axes?

Answer 1

[Thorsten]

No, but you can draw a white line on top of the axes.

Or you can use my function onlyticks

function onlyticks
%ONLYTICKS Plot only the ticks of the axis.
%
%   ONLYTICKS Plot only the ticks of the axis. 
%     Ticks drawn by ONLYTICKS are unaffected by subsequent calls of
%     BOX OFF or AXIS OFF.
%
%   [e-mail]  2015-07-08
plotsize = min([diff(xlim) diff(ylim)]);
xticklength = 0.015*plotsize;
yticklength = 0.01*plotsize;

% xticks
xpos1 = get(gca, 'XTick');
xpos = flatten([xpos1; xpos1; nan(1,numel(xpos1))])';

ylims = ylim; 
ypos = ylims(1) + [0 xticklength];
ypos = repmat([ypos nan(1,1)], [1 numel(xpos1)]);

if strcmp(get(gca, 'Box'), 'on')
  % add ticks on top of plot
  xpos = [xpos xpos];
  ypos = [ypos ypos + diff(ylims) - xticklength];
end

line(xpos(1:end-1), ypos(1:end-1), 'Color', get(gca, 'XColor'))

% yticks
ypos1 = get(gca, 'YTick');
ypos = flatten([ypos1; ypos1; nan(1,numel(ypos1))])';

xlims = xlim; 
xpos = xlims(1) + [0 yticklength];
xpos = repmat([xpos nan(1,1)], [1 numel(ypos1)]);

if strcmp(get(gca, 'Box'), 'on')
  % add ticks on top of plot
  ypos = [ypos ypos];
  xpos = [xpos xpos + diff(xlims) - yticklength];
end

line(xpos(1:end-1), ypos(1:end-1), 'Color', get(gca, 'YColor'))

axis off