rotating x-axis labels on an image

I have created an image using the following code:

 smallmatrix_6partic=[0 1 0 0 0 0 ; 0 0 0 0 0 0 ; 0 1 0 0 0 0 ; 0 1 0 0 0 0; 0 0 0 1 0 0; 0 0 0 0 1 0];

 smallmatrix_colheading= {'A','B','C','D','E','F','G'}; % these are going to be the row headings of the matrix

 [rows,cols]=size(smallmatrix_6partic);

 imagesc(smallmatrix_6partic)

 set(gca,'Xtick',1:rows,'XTickLabel',smallmatrix_colheading)

 set(gca,'Ytick',1:rows,'YTickLabel',smallmatrix_colheading)

My question is, is there a way to change the alignment and rotate the x-axis labels (A, B, C, etc...), maybe 90 degrees clockwise?

Answer 1

[Sean de Wolski]

In R2014b or newer:

>> set(gca,'XTickLabelRotation',90)

[Laszlo Bodnar]

Awesome, thank you so much for the quick response, Sean!

[Laszlo Bodnar]

One additional comment. Since I use MatLab2014a the above function did not work for me in the end. I searched couple of sites and ultimately found Ben Tordoff's solution. By applying

rotateXLabels(gca(),90)

I got what I needed. But of course I will keep your answer in mind so when we will update to version 2014b I could use it. Thank you again.