Draw a line with non-Cartesian coordinates in MATLAB - matlab

Question

MATLAB's surf command allows you to pass it optional X and Y data that specify non-cartesian x-y components. (they essentially change the basis vectors). I desire to pass similar arguments to a function that will draw a line.
How do I plot a line using a non-cartesian coordinate system?
My apologies if my terminology is a little off. This still might technically be a cartesian space but it wouldn't be square in the sense that one unit in the x-direction is orthogonal to one unit in the y-direction. If you can correct my terminology, I would really appreciate it!
EDIT:
Below better demonstrates what I mean:
The commands:
datA=1:10;
datB=1:10;
X=cosd(8*datA)'*datB;
Y=datA'*log10(datB*3);
Z=ones(size(datA'))*cosd(datB);
XX=X./(1+Z);
YY=Y./(1+Z);
surf(XX,YY,eye(10)); view([0 0 1])
produces the following graph:
Here, the X and Y dimensions are not orthogonal nor equi-spaced. One unit in x could correspond to 5 cm in the x direction but the next one unit in x could correspond to 2 cm in the x direction + 1 cm in the y direction. I desire to replicate this functionality but drawing a line instead of a surf For instance, I'm looking for a function where:
straightLine=[(1:10)' (1:10)'];
my_line(XX,YY,straightLine(:,1),straightLine(:,2))
would produce a line that traced the red squares on the surf graph.

Answer 1

I'm still not certain of what your input data are about, and what you want to plot. However, from how you want to plot it, I can help.
When you call
surf(XX,YY,eye(10)); view([0 0 1]);
and want to get only the "red parts", i.e. the maxima of the function, you are essentially selecting a subset of the XX, YY matrices using the diagonal matrix as indicator. So you could select those points manually, and use plot to plot them as a line:
Xplot = diag(XX);
Yplot = diag(YY);
plot(Xplot,Yplot,'r.-');
The call to diag(XX) will take the diagonal elements of the matrix XX, which is exactly where you'll get the red patches when you use surf with the z data according to eye().
Result:
Also, if you're just trying to do what your example states, then there's no need to use matrices just to take out the diagonal eventually. Here's the same result, using elementwise operations on your input vectors:
datA = 1:10;
datB = 1:10;
X2 = cosd(8*datA).*datB;
Y2 = datA.*log10(datB*3);
Z2 = cosd(datB);
XX2 = X2./(1+Z2);
YY2 = Y2./(1+Z2);
plot(Xplot,Yplot,'rs-',XX2,YY2,'bo--','linewidth',2,'markersize',10);
legend('original','vector')
Result:

Answer 2

Matlab has many built-in function to assist you.
In 2D the easiest way to do this is polar that allows you to make a graph using theta and rho vectors:
theta = linspace(0,2*pi,100);
r = sin(2*theta);
figure(1)
polar(theta, r), grid on
So, you would get this.
There also is pol2cart function that would convert your data into x and y format:
[x,y] = pol2cart(theta,r);
figure(2)
plot(x, y), grid on
This would look slightly different
Then, if we extend this to 3D, you are only left with plot3. So, If you have data like:
theta = linspace(0,10*pi,500);
r = ones(size(theta));
z = linspace(-10,10,500);
you need to use pol2cart with 3 arguments to produce this:
[x,y,z] = pol2cart(theta,r,z);
figure(3)
plot3(x,y,z),grid on
Finally, if you have spherical data, you have sph2cart:
theta = linspace(0,2*pi,100);
phi = linspace(-pi/2,pi/2,100);
rho = sin(2*theta - phi);
[x,y,z] = sph2cart(theta, phi, rho);
figure(4)
plot3(x,y,z),grid on
view([-150 70])
That would look this way