3d - Adjust label positioning in Axes3D of matplotlib

Question

I am having trouble with axes labels overlapping ticks labels in matplotlib. I've tried to reposition the labels "manually" by applying transforms or by calling set_y(), but no avail.

Here's a snippet that reproduces the problem:

import matplotlib
matplotlib.use("TKAGG")
import matplotlib.pyplot as pyplot
import mpl_toolkits.mplot3d

figure = pyplot.figure()
figure.subplots_adjust(bottom=0.25, top=0.75)
axes = figure.gca(projection='3d')
xLabel = axes.set_xlabel('XXX xxxxxx xxxx x xx x')
yLabel = axes.set_ylabel('YY (y) yyyyyy')
zLabel = axes.set_zlabel('Z zzzz zzz (z)')
plot = axes.plot([1,2,3],[1,2,3])

pyplot.show()

Note how the x and y labels clash with the ticks. Can I solve this elegantly ?

Answer 1

I share your frustration. I worked on it for a good half hour and got nowhere. The docs say set_xlabel takes an arg labelpad but I get an error (AttributeError: Unknown property labelpad)! Setting it after the fact doesn't do anything, on xaxis or w_xaxis.

Here's a crude workaround:

import matplotlib
matplotlib.use("TKAGG")
import matplotlib.pyplot as pyplot
import mpl_toolkits.mplot3d

figure = pyplot.figure(figsize=(8,4), facecolor='w')
ax = figure.gca(projection='3d')

xLabel = ax.set_xlabel('
XXX xxxxxx xxxx x xx x', linespacing=3.2)
yLabel = ax.set_ylabel('
YY (y) yyyyyy', linespacing=3.1)
zLabel = ax.set_zlabel('
Z zzzz zzz (z)', linespacing=3.4)
plot = ax.plot([1,2,3],[1,2,3])
ax.dist = 10

pyplot.show()