Plot a cell into a time-changing curve - matlab

Question

I have got a cell, which is like this : Data={[2,3],[5,6],[1,4],[6,7]...}
The number in every square brackets represent x and y of a point respectively. There will be a new coordinate into the cell in every loop of my algorithm.
I want to plot these points into a time-changing curve, which will tell me the trajectory of the point.
As a beginner of MATLAB, I have no idea of this stage. Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

Here is some sample code to get you started. It uses some basic Matlab functionalities that you will hopefully find useful as you continue using it. I added come data points to you cell array for illustrative purposes.
The syntax to access elements into the cell array might seem weird but is important. Look here for details about cell array indexing.
In order to give nice colors to the points, I generated an array based on the jet colormap built-in in Matlab. Basically issuing the command
Colors = jet(N)
create a N x 3 matrix in which every row is a 3-element color ranging from blue to red. That way you can see which points were detected before other (i.e. blue before red). Of course you can change that to anything you want (look here if you're interested).
So here is the code. If something is unclear please ask for clarifications.
clear
clc
%// Get data
Data = {[2,3],[5,6],[1,4],[6,7],[8,1],[5,2],[7,7]};
%// Set up a matrix to color the points. Here I used a jet colormap
%// available from MATLAB but that could be anything.
Colors = jet(numel(Data));
figure;
%// Use "hold all" to prevent the content of the figure to be overwritten
%// at every iterations.
hold all
for k = 1:numel(Data)
%// Note the syntax used to access the content of the cell array.
scatter(Data{k}(1),Data{k}(2),60,Colors(k,:),'filled');
%// Trace a line to link consecutive points
if k > 1
line([Data{k-1}(1) Data{k}(1)],[Data{k-1}(2) Data{k}(2)],'LineStyle','--','Color','k');
end
end
%// Set up axis limits
axis([0 10 0 11])
%// Add labels to axis and add a title.
xlabel('X coordinates','FontSize',16)
ylabel('Y coordinates','FontSize',16)
title('This is a very boring title','FontSize',18)
Which outputs the following:

Answer 2

This would be easier to achieve if all of your data was stored in a n by 2 (or 2 by n) matrix. In this case, each row would be a new entry. For example:
Data=[2,3;
5,6;
1,4;
6,7];
plot(Data(:, 1), Data(:, 2))
Would plot your points. Fortunately, Matlab is able to handle matrices which grow on every iteration, though it is not recommended.
If you really wanted to work with cells, there are a couple of ways you could do it. Firstly, you could assign the elements to a matrix and repeat the above method:
NumPoints = numel(Data);
DataMat = zeros(NumPoints, 2);
for I = 1:NumPoints % Data is a cell here
DataMat(I, :) = cell2mat(Data(I));
end
You could alternatively plot the elements straight from the cell, though this would limit your plot options.
NumPoints = numel(Data);
hold on
for I = 1:NumPoints
point = cell2mat(Data(I));
plot(point(1), point(2))
end
hold off
With regards to your time changing curve, if you find that Matlab starts to slow down after it stores lots of points, it is possible to limit your viewing window in time with clever indexing. For example:
index = 1;
SamplingRate = 10; % How many times per second are we taking a sample (Hertz)?
WindowTime = 10; % How far into the past do we want to store points (seconds)?
NumPoints = SamplingRate * WindowTime
Data = zeros(NumPoints, 2);
while running
% Your code goes here
Data(index, :) = NewData;
index = index + 1;
index = mod(index-1, NumPoints)+1;
plot(Data(:, 1), Data(:, 2))
drawnow
end
Will store your data in a Matrix of fixed size, meaning Matlab won't slow down.