Finding location of axis TickValues in a MATLAB figure - matlab

I am trying to get the location of axis TickValues from a MATLAB figure. For example, I have a figure as follows:
I am trying to find the location of axis TickValues after I save the figure as an image (shown in figure) [Note: The bounding boxes are handcrafted. Ignore any error]
Here is the code I generated so far:
h = plot(1:10);
hFrame = getframe(h.Parent.Parent);
hImage = hFrame.cdata;
set(h.Parent,'Units','pixel');
I am trying to get bounding boxes for x-axis TickValues and y-axis TickValues on hImage from the position of h.Parent.
Let me know if the question is not clear yet. I will edit to make it clearer.

As #suever suggested in comments, the Position property of the axes will be the simplest way to do that:
h = plot(1:10);
pos = h.Parent.Position; % get the axes position
m = 3; % width and hight multiplyer
xth = h.Parent.XAxis.TickLength(2); % get x-axis tick hight
dimx = [pos(1)-xth pos(2)-xth*m pos(3)+xth*2 xth*m];
annotation('rectangle',dimx,'color','r') % for demonstration
yth = h.Parent.YAxis.TickLength(2); % get y-axis tick hight
dimy = [pos(1)-yth*(m-1) pos(2)-yth yth*(m-1) pos(4)+yth*2];
annotation('rectangle',dimy,'color','r') % for demonstration
Demonstration:
and you can change m to be sure that all the tick values are within the bounding box.
EDIT:
Option 2:
Option 3:

Related

Specifying different colour schemes for different orientations of Polarhistogram in MATLAB

Question
When using polarhistogram(theta) to plot a dataset containing azimuths from 0-360 degrees. Is it possible to specify colours for given segments?
Example
In the plot bellow for example would it be possible to specify that all bars between 0 and 90 degrees (and thus 180-270 degrees also) are red? whilst the rest remains blue?
Reference material
I think if it exists it will be within here somewhere but I am unable to figure out which part exactly:
https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/polaraxes-properties.html
If you use rose, you can extract the edges of the histogram and plot each bar one by one. It's a bit of a hack but it works, looks pretty and does not require Matlab 2016b.
theta = atan2(rand(1e3,1)-0.5,2*(rand(1e3,1)-0.5));
n = 25;
colours = hsv(n);
figure;
rose(theta,n); cla; % Use this to initialise polar axes
[theta,rho] = rose(theta,n); % Get the histogram edges
theta(end+1) = theta(1); % Wrap around for easy interation
rho(end+1) = rho(1);
hold on;
for j = 1:floor(length(theta)/4)
k = #(j) 4*(j-1)+1; % Change of iterator
h = polar(theta(k(j):k(j)+3),rho(k(j):k(j)+3));
set(h,'color',colours(j,:)); % Set the color
[x,y] = pol2cart(theta(k(j):k(j)+3),rho(k(j):k(j)+3));
h = patch(x,y,'');
set(h,'FaceColor',colours(j,:),'FaceAlpha',0.2);
uistack(h,'down');
end
grid on; axis equal;
title('Coloured polar histogram')
Result

Matlab Area Plot: Adjusting box style and tick marks

I am trying to create area plots with 2 y-axis using plotyy by using 'area' function. I don't want to have any tick marks or labels or titles but I just want the outside box. I would also like to save just the plot (not the entire figure window) as a png file.
When I turn off the x and y-axis ticks and labels, the box looks thin on the bottom and left, thick on the top and right. What am I doing wrong?
Also, if I try to make the box 'LineWidth' fat, I see two tick marks at the bottom left and bottom right - which ruin the plot and I am unable to remove. Can someone help?
My test code is below:
x = 1:100;
y1 = rand(size(x));
y2 = 100*rand(size(x));
fig_handle = figure('units','inches','position',[1 1 9 3]);
[a,p1,p2] = plotyy(x,y1,x,y2,'area');
c1 = get(p1,'child');
c2 = get(p2,'child');
set(c1,'facea',0.5,'FaceColor','b','EdgeColor',[0 0 0]);
set(c2,'facea',0.5,'FaceColor','r','EdgeColor',[0 0 0]);
set(c1,'Line','None');
set(c2,'Line','None');
set(a,'Layer','top')
set(a,'XTick',[]);
set(a(1),'YTick',[]);
set(a(2),'YTick',[]);
set(a,'TickDir','in')
set(a,'LineWidth',5);
Also, notice how the left Y-axis has red area on it, while the right Y-axis doesn't. Is this fix-able?
Any help would be appreciated! Also, I am new to StackOverflow - so, if these are too many questions in one post, please pardon me and I will post them as separate requests/questions.
Here is a workaround for the red appearing on the left Y-axis.
Since the axes line is quite thick, the data displayed close to it is drawn over it. To avoid this, you can slightly shift the x limits of the axes to make more room for the data. Do so by changing the XLim property of either axes since they share the same x limit:
XL = get(a,'Xlim');
xl = XL{1}; %// here XL{1} and XL{2} are the same...[1 100]
set(a(:),'Xlim',[xl(1)-.5 xl(2)+.5])
As for the annoying tick marks at the bottom of the plot, I must say that I don't know how to remove them while keeping the axes visible.
As an alternative solution to plotyy, here is a way to obtain a good result (I think) without plotyy. The trick is to superimpose 2 axes and make both of them not visible, then set the figure's color to white and add a black rectangle surrounding the plot.
Here is the code:
clear
clc
close all
x = 1:100;
y1 = rand(size(x));
y2 = 100*rand(size(x));
H1 = area(x,y1);
%// Set the figure color to white
set(gcf,'Color','w')
%// Plot data and set different properties for each axes
A1 = gca;
A2 = axes('Position',get(A1,'Position'));
H2 = area(x,y2);
set(A2,'YAxisLocation','right','Color','none','XTickLabel',[]);
set(A2,'XLim',get(A1,'XLim'),'XTick',[],'YTick',[]);
set(A1,'XTick',[],'YTick',[]);
%// Make both axes not visible.
set(A2,'Visible','off')
set(A1,'Visible','off')
axes(A1)
%// Get axes limits
XL = get(gca,'XLim');
YL= get(gca,'YLim');
%// Create rectangle as a bounding box
rectangle('Position',[XL(1) YL(1) XL(2)-1 YL(2)],'LineWidth',5)
%//===
%// Change the data color/properties
hP = findobj('Type','patch');
set(hP(1),'FaceColor','b','FaceAlpha',.5,'EdgeColor',[0 0 0],'line','none')
set(hP(2),'FaceColor','r','FaceAlpha',.5,'EdgeColor',[0 0 0],'line','none')
And the output:
It's not perfect but hope that helps!

Align inset in matlab plot to the right

How can I align an inset of a MATLAB plot to the top right edge of the box, like in the picture?
The example was generated with GNU R as explained in How to add an inset (subplot) to "topright" of an R plot?
Here is a way to do it:
Basically create a figure with an axes, and then add a new axis that you place to a specific position and to which you give the size you want.
Code:
clc
clear
close all
%// Dummy data
x = -20:0;
x2 = x(5:10);
%// Zoomed region to put into inset.
y = x.^2;
y2 = y(5:10);
%// Create a figure
hFig = figure(1);
%// Plot the original data
hP1 = plot(x,y);
xlabel('Original x','FontSize',18)
ylabel('Original y','FontSize',18)
hold on
%// Add an axes and set its position to where you want. Its in normalized
%// units
hAxes2 = axes('Parent',hFig,'Position',[.58 .6 .3 .3]);
%// Plot the zommed region
plot(x2,y2,'Parent',hAxes2)
%// Set the axis limits and labels
set(gca,'Xlim',[x(5) x(10)])
xlabel('Zoomed x','FontSize',16)
ylabel('Zommed y','FontSize',16)
And output:
To be fancy you could play around with the new axes position so that the outer borders coincide with the large one, but that should get you going :)

Moving MATLAB axis ticks by a half step

I'm trying to position MATLAB's ticks to line up with my grid, but I can't find a good way to offset the labels.
Also, if I run set(gca,'XTickLabel',1:10), my x tick labels end up ranging from 1 to 5. What gives?
You need to move the ticks, but get the labels before and write them back after moving:
f = figure(1)
X = randi(10,10,10);
surf(X)
view(0,90)
ax = gca;
XTick = get(ax, 'XTick')
XTickLabel = get(ax, 'XTickLabel')
set(ax,'XTick',XTick+0.5)
set(ax,'XTickLabel',XTickLabel)
YTick = get(ax, 'YTick')
YTickLabel = get(ax, 'YTickLabel')
set(ax,'YTick',YTick+0.5)
set(ax,'YTickLabel',YTickLabel)
Or if you know everything before, do it manually from the beginning:
[N,M] = size(X)
set(ax,'XTick',0.5+1:N)
set(ax,'XTickLabel',1:N)
set(ax,'YTick',0.5+1:M)
set(ax,'YTickLabel',1:M)
The marked answer works with a surf or mesh plot, however, I needed a solution which worked for a 2d plot.
This can be done by creating two axes, one to display the grid and the other to display the labels as follows
xlabels=1:1:10; %define where we want to see the labels
xgrid=0.5:1:10.5; %define where we want to see the grid
plot(xlabels,xlabels.^2); %plot a parabola as an example
set(gca,'xlim',[min(xgrid) max(xgrid)]); %set axis limits so we can see all the grid lines
set(gca,'XTickLabel',xlabels); %print the labels on this axis
axis2=copyobj(gca,gcf); %make an identical copy of the current axis and add it to the current figure
set(axis2,'Color','none'); %make the new axis transparent so we can see the plot
set(axis2,'xtick',xgrid,'XTickLabel',''); %set the tick marks to the grid, turning off labels
grid(axis2,'on'); %turn on the grid
This script displays the following figure :

Marker size unit proportionnal to the axis values

I have an X Y Z dataset.
X and Y are the 2D coordinates and Z is the intensity.
I plot the data using the scatter function:
markerSize=100;
scatter(x,y,markerSize,z,'s','fill');
I use the options 's' and 'fill' to get filled squares.
My problem is the markerSize value corresponds to the area of the marker, and its unit is points (1/72 of one inch).
The marker size is constant, even if I resize the figure plot. So that the gap between the data points increases when I increase the figure size.
What I would like is a constant marker size which is a constant of the axis unit. For instance, the marker size should be 5x5 (5 in X axis and 5 in Y axis).
Thanks for your help.
You want to make the size of markers proportional to the figure size.
The size of markers is controlled by SizeData parameter of the scattergroup object. The size of figure is stored in Position parameter of the figure object. The difficult part is to interactively resize the marker when the figure size is changed. So you need to use ResizeFcn callback and call setmarkersize function that you define.
function [ ] = setmarkersize( src, evnt )
% # get position of the figure (pos = [x, y, width, height])
pos = get(src, 'Position');
% # get the scattergroup object
h = get(get(src,'children'),'children');
% # resize the marker
relativesize = 0.5;
set(h,'SizeData', pos(3)*relativesize);
end
================================================
% # attach the callback to figure
f = figure('ResizeFcn', #setmarkersize);
h = scatter(x,y,markerSize,z,'s','fill');
You will have to set the marker size manually according to the actual figure size on screen. Using axes property Position you can convert data units to relative figure units. In the next step this size can be converted to the absolute size in points on screen. With that information you can set the marker size accordingly. In the following code snippet I've set the x/y axis limits and width/height of the axis to identical values, because the square marker area can only be calculated reasonably if the marker width is equal to the marker height.
Set marker size relative to data units
% test data
x = [25*rand(1,10) 2.5];
y = [25*rand(1,10) 2.5];
z = [rand(1,10) 0.5];
% relative marker size in squared normalized figure units
marker_rel = 5;
%% Set relative marker size (approximately)
scatter(x,y,100,z,'s','fill');
% Set identical x/y limits and set axes height=widht, so that markers
% really represent squares in data units
xlim([0 25]);
ylim([0 25]);
set(gca, 'Units', 'Points');
axpos_pt = get(gca, 'Position');
axpos_pt = [axpos_pt(1) axpos_pt(2) min(axpos(3:4)) min(axpos(3:4))];
set(gca, 'Position', axpos_pt);
grid on;
grid minor;
% Set marker size relative to data units
markerSize = (marker_rel * axpos_pt(3) / diff(xlim))^2;
set(get(gca, 'children'), 'sizedata', markerSize);
As it turns out, the displayed marker size is slightly smaller than expected. Obviously, there's some bounding box of unknown (at least to me) size, see here.
An alternative approach is to plot rectangles "manually" as shown in the following code snippet (same test data is used). When the figure is resized, the rectangles are resized as well without any special callback function being needed.
Draw rectangles manually
%% Use rectangles (exact)
figure;
axes;
cmp = colormap;
z_range = max(z) - min(z);
line_style = 'none'; % set to '-' to make the edges visible
for k = 1:length(x)
x_pos = x(k) - marker_rel/2;
y_pos = y(k) - marker_rel/2;
w = marker_rel;
h = marker_rel;
color = cmp( round(((z(k) - min(z))/z_range)*(length(cmp) - 1)) + 1, : );
rectangle('Position', [x_pos y_pos w h], 'FaceColor', color,...
'LineStyle', line_style);
end
grid on;
grid minor;
The above code produces the desired marker size:
In general, these are no squares. They can (and will) only be squares if xlim = ylim and absolute height of axis = absolute width of axis. I have shown in my first code snippet how to achieve this.
I found an answer on the Matlab central forum which does not use the useful dsxy2figxy function. Here is the link to it (link)
The code is the following:
x = rand(1,50);
y = rand(1,50);
s = 5; %Marker width in units of X
h = scatter(x,y); % Create a scatter plot and return a handle to the 'hggroup' object
%Obtain the axes size (in axpos) in Points
currentunits = get(gca,'Units');
set(gca, 'Units', 'Points');
axpos = get(gca,'Position');
set(gca, 'Units', currentunits);
markerWidth = s/diff(xlim)*axpos(3); % Calculate Marker width in points
set(h, 'SizeData', markerWidth^2)
The answer by ysakamoto doesn't work in Matlab 2014, where Mathworks changed figure handles from double to object. The following modification makes it work again:
function [ ] = setmarkersize( src, ~ )
% get position of the figure (pos = [x, y, width, height])
pos = get(src, 'Position');
% marker size
relativesize = 0.01;
% axes is not necessarily the only child of figure (e.g. colorbar may be first)
for i = 1:numel(src.Children)
if strcmpi(src.Children(i).Type, 'axes')
% make marker size depend on figure width
src.Children(i).Children.SizeData = pos(3) * relativesize;
break
end
end
end
Also, when creating the figure it will not set the marker size to the correct value until resized. So call setmarkersize explicitly:
f = figure('ResizeFcn', #setmarkersize);
...
setmarkersize(f)
Consider abandoning 'markers' and drawing directly on the axis using rectangles or circles. The 'rectangle' command with 'curvature' set to [1 1] is essentially an open circle. Units are in plot units, so each rectangle can be scaled:
rectangle('position', [rectCentX rectCentY widthInPlotUnits, heightInPlotUnits],'curvature',[1 1])