Question

Is there a way to increase the thickness and size of ticks in matplotlib without having to write a long piece of code like this:

for line in ax1.yaxis.get_ticklines():
    line.set_markersize(25)
    line.set_markeredgewidth(3)

The problem with this piece of code is that it uses a loop which costs usually a lot of CPU usage.

Answer 1

A simpler way is to use the set_tick_params function of axis objects:

ax.xaxis.set_tick_params(width=5)
ax.yaxis.set_tick_params(width=5)

Doing it this way means you can change this on a per-axis basis with out worrying about global state and with out making any assumptions about the internal structure of mpl objects.

If you want to set this for all the ticks in your axes,

ax = plt.gca()
ax.tick_params(width=5,...)

Take a look at set_tick_params doc and tick_params valid keywords