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How can I plot professional quality graphs in matlab? [closed]
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Closed 2 years ago.
I want to create high-quality figures ready to be submitted for publication. What is the best font size, type of file to be saved as(.fig, .eps, .png?) and generally the characteristics required for a top-quality figure?
Depends on the paper editing software you use.
If you use Latex or Overleaf, exporting to PDF is the easiest/simplest/smallest-file-size one while keeping image quality as high as possible (i.e. vector format). My typical workflow is
create the plot, set font size to 18 o 20 use set(gca,'fontsize',..).
set(gcf,'paperpositionmode','auto'); this is important! it makes your figure what-you-see-is-what-you-get, so you can adjust figure sizes relative to the font size.
save as PDF or print -dpdf to export to the figure.
call pdfcrop yourfigure.pdf to remove the margins, pdfcrop is available on Linux/Mac, but also available on Windows. If you can't install pdfcrop, you can also use inkscape to fit plot to page.
I usually try to make the figure in its final look using matlab commands (so it can be easily reproduced), but in case there are changes that I can;t make automatically, I will open the pdf using inkscape and manually edit.
if the figure is a 3D surface/mesh rendering with transparency, I will directly call print -dpng -r300 myfile.png to create a png bitmap image directly. Exporting to pdf generates huge file sizes and slow rendering.
once done, upload the pdf or png to overleaf, the platform accepts these formats directly.
If using older versions of MS Word, I had been exporting images to EPS and insert to keep the images in highest quality possible. However, since 2017, this feature was turned off
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/support-for-eps-images-has-been-turned-off-in-office-a069d664-4bcf-415e-a1b5-cbb0c334a840
but one can still modify a registry key to turn it on.
Later MS Office accepts svg, which you can export from matlab.
Related
I have generated several plots in MATLAB and I haven't set the ( width or height) to any of them. I save them as pdf to place them in LaTeX but each figure appear with different size. I can change each figure size in LaTeX but I wonder if there is an easy way in MATLAB to get same size for all figures.
Can I reset the figure size after generating in MATLAB or I have to regenerate each figure with specific size?
What is the best way to export figures in MATLAB to use them in LaTeX?
Exporting figures from MATLAB to LaTeX is best done via .eps or directly to PDF. MATLAB's saveas() functionality supports both. The benefit of these file-types is that thy are vector files, meaning, loosely, that coordinates of corners in the lines are saved, as opposed to a bunch of fixed pixels such as with PNG or JPG figures. Using then these figures in LaTeX gives infinite scalability (theoretically, usefulness of highly-zoomed figures may vary).
If you need different aspect ratios, i.e. one figure taller than broad, the other broader than tall, You'd have to set the proper aspect ratio for each figure independently, then save using one of the aforementioned vector file types.
One of the best ways to export pretty figures is the export_fig() functionality written by Oliver Woodford and currently maintained by Yair Altman and freely available on the FileExchange.
Answering your first question: yes you can resize figures after generating them. Either by hand (change the window size), or programatically: you can make a figure handle (h=figure();, where h is your handle), which has several options to control figure size; h.position being the most prominent: [upper-left, lower-left, upper-right, lower-right] being its content in terms of corner coordinates. Changing those changes the figure size.
I am asking for a solution to the blurred image I get when I use copy figure option in Matlab. For example, when I plot 3d figure in matlab I get the following image (It is the result of printscreen!)..
However, when I use the option copy figure I get a blurred image as the following image
.
How can I avoid this as I need to get high resolution image using copy figure option. Thank you in advance for any help you may lend.
By default, the figure is copied as an Enhanced Metafile (a color graphics format) which works for basic plots such as bar plots, line plots, and other 2D plots but may yield undesirable results for more complex plots as in your case. This is because the rendering of the Metafile content is controlled my Microsoft Word and it may render things differently than MATLAB.
If you need a high resolution image, I would recommend using the print command where you can specify the desired resolution (using the -r option). Then you can import the resulting image into Word
print(gcf, 'myfile.png', '-dpng', '-r300')
Alternately, you can use export_fig from the File Exchange which better preserves the appearance
Another option would be to change the format used by Copy Figure to tell it to use a bitmap instead
Or you can call Copy Figure programmatically and specify a different format (either a bitmap or PDF)
print(gcf, '-clipboard', '-dpdf')
I want to include Matlab figures in a Powerpoint presentation. [Note that in other contexts, I usually use LaTeX beamer with .eps files, but here I am obliged to use Powerpoint.]
I know two ways:
Save the image as e.g. a .tiff file and include the image in Powerpoint. The result does not always look sharp and some lines are too thin.
Copy the image directly in Matlab and paste it in Powerpoint. The resulting figure is way nicer. But after exporting the Powerpoint to pdf, it may take some time to load the figure (especially when you included grid minor).
What is the difference between these two methods: is it the well-known bitmap vs. vector image difference or something else? Is there a way to have the quality of the second method but without the problem that is loads slowly?
How the line smoothness in a contour plot can be improved for publications? For instance, the dotted lines look really bad, the continuous lines look as if their thickness varies. See below
Here's part of the code:
Vals = [0:5:200]; contourf(X,Y,W,Vals,'EdgeColor','k','LineWidth',1.2,'LineStyle',':');axis square;grid;hold on
Vals = [10:10:200]; contour(X,Y,W,Vals,'EdgeColor','k','LineWidth',1.2);
Vals = [20 : 20 : 200]; [C,h] = contour(X,Y,W,Vals,'Color','k','LineWidth',1.8);
clabel(C,h,'FontName','Palatino Linotype','FontAngle','italic','Fontsize',9,'Color','w')
print -djpeg -r300 filename
Thanks!
Saved as png doesn't help much... check the lines :/ See below:
Check the dotted lines now...
Here's saving as eps (-r1200)... it looks better
Exporting as vector graphics will definitely improve the image over what you see on your screen; I use LaTeX for publications and you can either export to eps for postscript output, and use epstopdf for PDF output, and embed these directly in your document; that would be the best solution.
Additionally, there are also a bunch of general utilities for making your plots look better for camera-ready publications, the most notable that comes to mind is exportfig, which has a load of features to help even with pixel graphics. These go above and beyond just generating smoother-looking images.
http://www.mathworks.us/matlabcentral/fileexchange/23629-exportfig
(copied from that page):
This function saves a figure or single axes to one or more vector and/or bitmap file formats, and/or outputs a rasterized version to the workspace, with the following properties:
Figure/axes reproduced as it appears on screen
Cropped borders (optional)
Embedded fonts (pdf only)
Improved line and grid line styles
Anti-aliased graphics (bitmap formats)
Render images at native resolution (optional for bitmap formats)
Transparent background supported (pdf, eps, png)
Semi-transparent patch objects supported (png only)
RGB, CMYK or grayscale output (CMYK only with pdf, eps, tiff)
Variable image compression, including lossless (pdf, eps, jpg)
Optionally append to file (pdf, tiff)
Vector formats: pdf, eps
Bitmap formats: png, tiff, jpg, bmp, export to workspace
This function is especially suited to exporting figures for use in publications and presentations, because of the high quality and portability of media produced.
Update: I see your example code now. Did you try changing -r300 to some really high value? More pixels per inch should make everything look smoother. For publication, crank it up really high, like -r1200.
Original:
One thing you can try is exporting the plot in some format that supports vector graphics. Matlab supports both PDF and EMF, so try one of those. Export using the saveas command or from the figure's "File -> Save as" menu item. After that, open or import the image file in some other application and hopefully it will look better.
Please add a new screenshot if you get a nicer image!
I am looking to export my MATLAB plot as a high quality figure. Specifically, I would like to save it as a vector based file format such as EPS or SVG.
I have tried print and saveas commands:
saveas(h,'myFileName','epsc2');
print('-r150','-depsc2', 'myFilename');
On all occasions this produces poor quality parts of the graph, although the axis-labels are indeed vector. Why does MatLab do some horrible rendering before putting it into an EPS?
Example of poor quality plot here:
http://users.ox.ac.uk/~pemb2372/myFileName.eps
Edit:
It is also worth noting that if you use a Mac viewing an EPS file from Matlab, 'Preview' app may render inner graph content rasterized and poor quality, while leaving the axis and labels vectorized and high quality. This is very misleading but when you open said EPS file in, for example, Inkscape, the quality is actually vector and quite high.
Edit 2:
My university hosting account has expired, so you can no longer view the figure. Suffice it to say that it showed a poor quality raster-style plot within high quality beautiful axis lines, ticks and labels.
I thought I would share the issue I had, and how I overcame it...
I was getting terrible results because I had the wrong renderer set to default. In my startup.m, I had the zbuffer renderer enabled. This is an example eps output.
I made that eps output with: print(gcf,'-depsc2','filename.eps'). This eps is so OBVIOUSLY rasterised. It makes me angry at matlab. Then, I had a brainwave - perhaps my default renderer zbuffer is interfering with the image save process. So, adding the line:
set(gcf,'renderer','painters')
and running the print command as before, here is the output:
Note that I just took screenshots of the eps output files at 100%. And I can confirm the second image is actually vector. Here is a good question/explanation on choosing Renderers in MATLAB.
Matlab can export to pdf with better quality than EPS, but with its own caveats of setting decent margins and font sizes.
edit:
Examples are similar to the EPS case as explained in the help of e.g. print:
saveas(gcf,'filename.pdf')
or
print('-dpdf','filename.pdf')
You might also want to take a look at the PaperSize, PaperPosition and PaperUnits properties of your figure (by means of the set and get functions).
edit: Another option is to use one of the functions available on FileExchange such as the ones mentioned by #user664303 below. My personal favorite for use with LaTeX is matlab2tikz for which the latest version can be gotten from GitHub. Together with the external library of TikZ, I think this delivers some of the most nicest graphs around.
Probably it's also best to mention that I have been actively involved in the matlab2tikz project since 2012.
The export_fig function on the MATLAB file exchange is a reasonably reliable way of accurately exporting figures to eps and pdf (as well as bitmap formats) in MATLAB.
The plot2svg function, also from the file exchange, allows you to export in svg format. It provides some additional benefits, such as being able to export translucent patch objects in vector format.
A comparison of exporting methods is given in this blog post.
I always acquire the final plots (those which are supposed to be inserted into papers and publications) by matplotlib library of python.
You can bet on the amazing quality of the generated plots, both .pdf and .eps formats.