Setting axis limit for plot - matlab

Question

I want to set the limit for X axis in this plot from 0 to 325. When i am using xlim to set the limits (commented in the code). It doesn't work properly. When i use xlim, the entire structure of plot changes. Any help will be appreciated.
figure
imagesc(transpose(all_area_for_visual));
colormap("jet")
colorbar('Ticks',0:3,'TickLabels',{'Home ','Field','Bad house','Good house'})
xlabel('Time (min)')
tickLocs = round(linspace(1,length(final_plot_mat_missing_part(2:end,1)),8));
timeVector = final_plot_mat_missing_part(2:end,1);
timeForTicks = (timeVector(tickLocs))./60;
xticks(tickLocs);
xticklabels(timeForTicks);
%xlim([0 325]);
ylabel('Car identity')
yticks(1:length(Ucolumnnames_fpm))
yticklabels([Ucolumnnames_fpm(1,:)])

Answer 1

If I get you right, you want to plot only part of the data in all_area_for_visual, given by a condition on tickLocs. So you should first condition the data, and then plot it:
% generate the vector of x values:
tickLocs = round(linspace(1,length(final_plot_mat_missing_part(2:end,1)),8));
% create an index vector (of logicals) that marks the columns to plot from the data matix:
validX = tickLocs(tickLocs<=325);
% plot only the relevant part of the data:
imagesc(transpose(all_area_for_visual(:,validX)));
% generate the correct ticks for the data that was plotted:
timeVector = final_plot_mat_missing_part(2:end,1);
timeForTicks = (timeVector(tickLocs(validX)))./60;
xticks(tickLocs(validX));
% here you continue with setting the labels, colormap and so on...

Answer 2

imagesc puts the data in little rectangles centered around integers 1:width and 1:height by default. You can specify what the x and y locations of each data point by adding two vectors to the call:
imagesc(x,y,transpose(all_area_for_visual));
where x and y are vectors with the locations along the x and y axes you want to place the data.
Note that xlim and xticks don’t change the location of the data, only the region of the axis shown, and the location of tick marks along the axis. With xticklabels you can change what is shown at each tick mark, so you can use that to “fake” the data locations, but the xlim setting still applies to the actual locations, not to the labels assigned to the ticks.
I think it is easier to plot the data in the right locations to start with. Here is an example:
% Fake your data, I'm making a small matrix here for illustration purposes
all_area_for_visual = min(floor(cumsum(rand(20,5)/2)),3);
times = linspace(0,500,20); % These are the locations along the time axis for each matrix element
car_id_names = [4,5,8,15,18]; % These are the labels to put along the y-axis
car_ids = 1:numel(car_id_names); % These are the locations to use along the y-axis
% Replicate your plot
figure
imagesc(times,car_ids,transpose(all_area_for_visual));
% ^^^ ^^^ NOTE! specifying locations
colormap("jet")
colorbar('Ticks',0:3,'TickLabels',{'Home ','Field','Bad house','Good house'})
xlabel('Time (min)')
ylabel('Car identity')
set(gca,'YTick',car_ids,'YTickLabel',car_id_names) % Combine YTICK and YTICKLABEL calls
% Now you can specify your limit, in actual time units (min)
xlim([0 325]);