Matplotlib: 3D surface plot turn off background but keep axes

Question

I want to do a 3D surface plot that shows axes but does not show the faces that are between the axes. What I found is how to turn off axes as well as the faces using ax.set_axis_off(). Is there any chance to turn off only those faces, or to make them transparent? (In the first picture you can see the faces if you look closely)

Answer 1

You cannot "turn the panes off", but you can change their color and thereby make them transparent.

ax.xaxis.set_pane_color((1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0))

Complete code:

from mpl_toolkits.mplot3d import Axes3D
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

fig = plt.figure()
ax = fig.gca(projection='3d')
ax.set_xlabel("x"); ax.set_ylabel("y"); ax.set_zlabel("z")

x = np.arange(-5, 5, 0.25)
X, Y = np.meshgrid(x,x)
Z = np.sin(np.sqrt(X**2 + Y**2))

# make the panes transparent
ax.xaxis.set_pane_color((1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0))
ax.yaxis.set_pane_color((1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0))
ax.zaxis.set_pane_color((1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.0))
# make the grid lines transparent
ax.xaxis._axinfo["grid"]['color'] =  (1,1,1,0)
ax.yaxis._axinfo["grid"]['color'] =  (1,1,1,0)
ax.zaxis._axinfo["grid"]['color'] =  (1,1,1,0)

surf = ax.plot_surface(X, Y, Z, cmap=plt.cm.coolwarm,
                   linewidth=0, antialiased=False)

fig.colorbar(surf, shrink=0.5, aspect=5)
plt.show()

Answer 2

This answer worked better for me, a clean, one-line solution.

fig, ax = plt.subplots(subplot_kw={"projection": "3d"})
ax.set_axis_off()

Another way that works really well for customising your backgrounds:

for axis in [ax.xaxis, ax.yaxis, ax.zaxis]:
    axis.set_ticklabels([])
    axis._axinfo['axisline']['linewidth'] = 1
    axis._axinfo['axisline']['color'] = "b"
    axis._axinfo['grid']['linewidth'] = 0.5
    axis._axinfo['grid']['linestyle'] = "--"
    axis._axinfo['grid']['color'] = "#d1d1d1"
    axis._axinfo['tick']['inward_factor'] = 0.0
    axis._axinfo['tick']['outward_factor'] = 0.0
    axis.set_pane_color((0, 0, 0))