Do you know a simple way to draw arbitrary splines or lines in a plot-figure? I've got the following figure which I created in powerpoint with more or less arbitrary spline-curve (blue) but I'd like to do the same in MATLAB now because of a better look in the final plot-output.
I'm now wondering if I've got to manually "find" data-values to draw some sort of spline (which looks roughly like the blue one below) myself or if there's maybe a tool where I can simply insert some points into a plot interactively and there's a curve fitted though it to create something similar!?
The green and red lines I can figure out myself (probably also have to plot them manually, do I)?!?
Thanks in advance!
EDIT
Okay I found a way myself doing it in MATLAB to gnerate a nice spline: Use splinetool, then either use an example or import some data and then you can interactively add and delete points until your spline looks roughly like it should. Then file->print to figure and then tools->edit plot! You can then delete everything you don't need, add title, xlabel and ylabel etc. and then export it to latex with e.g. matlab2tikz :-) Very nice stuff!!
According the purpose, print nice plots for the thesis, I have some out-of-Matlab recommendations.
1) plot everything as usual, you get a figure handle and an axes handle
h = figure( ... )
a = gca
2) use the data cursor function of the figure window and interactively insert the base points for your later splines. You can additional points by right-click.
t = linspace(0,2*pi,1000);
[x y] = deal(sin(t),cos(t))
Later you delete the "visual" part of the data tip inside Illustrator/Inkscape, if you just want to keep the anchor point of the vector graphic to snap your splines.
There is also the possibility of custom data tips: Tutorial at Matlab Central
3) I once wrote a function to nicely plot Matlab figures as vector graphic based PDFs. You can specify height, width and how much white margin around you want. You just need to pass figure and axes handle and the name:
function saveFigure( fig_handle, axes_handle, name , height , width , margin)
set(axes_handle,'LooseInset',get(gca,'TightInset'));
set(fig_handle, 'Units','centimeters','PaperUnits','centimeters')
% the last two parameters of 'Position' define the figure size
set(fig_handle,'Position',[-margin -margin width height],...
'PaperPosition',[0 0 width+margin height+margin],...
'PaperSize',[width+margin height+margin],...
'PaperPositionMode','auto',...
'InvertHardcopy', 'on',...
'Renderer','painters'... %recommended if there are no alphamaps
);
saveas(fig_handle,name,'pdf')
end
4) You get a PDF you could directly use for Latex - for use in MS Office use 'emf' (
Enhanced metafile) rather than 'pdf'. Open this file with Adobe Illustrator (preferable as it offers layers) or Inkskape (Open Source).
5) The datatips are recognized as graphical objects, you can catch them and draw a spline on them. For Illustrator I'd recommend to put the spline in another layer than the actual figure. Later you can just swap the figure and give the spline new anchor points. In Inkscape you could use the grouping function to keep everything together.
6) I'd say you save a lot of time over a only-Matlab-solution. Good look!
Related
I am plotting some maps using Matlab that use mapshow to plot the country border from a shapefile. I then export them to both a PDF and EPS format using the export_fig package. This worked completely fine using Matlab 2014a, but I have just upgraded to Matlab 2014b to take advantage of something else that has improved, and now my country border is all jagged. The border only looks jagged on the saved versions of the file. If I zoom in on the figure window, the outline isn't like that.
Here are the snippets of code that are important. It is a custom shapefile, so I don't know how to put it on here so people can replicate it.
This bit reads in the shapefile and plots it. The display type is 'polygon' if that is relevent, hence getting rid of the 'FaceColor' so I can see what I am plotting underneath (the green bits in the background of the images, plotted using pcolor).
thaiborder=shaperead('Thailandborder');
mapshow(thaiborder,'FaceColor','none');
This bit is how I am exporting the figure.
export_fig test.eps -r600 -painters
export_fig test.pdf -r600 -painters
This is the version with a smooth border from Matlab 2014a:
This is roughly the same area of the image, with the jagged border from Matlab 2014b:
Does anyone know why these differences are occurring? I want the border to be like it is in the first image, but I need the "improved" functionality of Matlab 2014b for another thing in the same image. What do I need to change?
Edit to add: I have been in contact with the creator of export_fig and he thinks it is caused by Matlab now using mitred joins rather than round ones. Apparently I have to write to MathWorks to complain. I didn't put this as an answer because someone else may be able to provide a solution for me.
Matlab acknowledged that this is known bug. For me the first fix worked.
The issue of jagged lines on the figures while exporting in the vector format is a known bug in MATLAB R2014b. It is associated with the combination of linejoins and meterlimits used in vector format.
To work around this issue, use the attached function fixeps to post process the EPS file.
You can use one of the following ways to call this fixeps function.
fixeps('input.eps','output.eps','LJ') % Will change the linejoins to round
fixeps('input.eps','output.eps','ML') % Will correct the miterlimit
function fixeps(inname,outname,fixmode)
if nargin==2
fixmode = 'LJ';
end
fi = fopen(inname,'r');
fo = fopen(outname,'w');
tline = fgets(fi);
while ischar(tline)
if (strcmp(tline,['10.0 ML' 10])) % Replace 10.0 miterlimit
switch (fixmode)
case 'LJ'
fwrite(fo,['1 LJ' 10]); % With round linejoin
case 'ML'
fwrite(fo,['2.5 ML' 10]); % With smaller miterlimit
end
else
fwrite(fo,tline);
end
tline = fgets(fi);
end
fclose(fo);
fclose(fi);
I had a similar problem that I found to be caused by the 'MarkerSize' option. It seems that in version 2014b it inherits the units of the figure. For example, if I have a figure in centimeters and I ask for ('MarkerSize', 10), the 10 will not be interpreted as points (as in 2014a) but as cm. I fixed this by changing the figure units to pt.
The MATLAB surf plot below is essentially two plots plotted adjacent to each other. For clarity, I have included some code below used to prepare the plot:
band1 = horzcat(band1, eSurface2(:,:,1));
band2 = horzcat(band2, eSurface2(:,:,2));
surf(band2,'DisplayName','band2');
surf(band3,'DisplayName','band2');
I would like for the y axis numbering to restart at the start of the second graph. How do I go about doing that?
You can use the 'YTick' and 'YTickLabel' properties of the axis to control the ticks, this way you can make it start from zero for the second graph. It will require some trail and error to get it right. See the relevant doc here (you'll have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page).
Take advantage of the following feature of 'YTickLabel': "If you do not specify enough text labels for all the tick marks, MATLAB uses all of the labels specified, then reuses the specified labels".
I need to write a script in Matlab, which will read some data from Excel table and paint a circular graph in Matlab's figure. However I was adviced to paint it using Excel facilities. It's not hard to paint a circular graph in Excel but I still haven't found any way to make it work from Matlab, using Matlab's figure. I've already asked this question on other forums but haven't receive any answer. I'll be very grateful for any help.
So, I figured out how to use ActiveX control in Matlab's figure.
Firstly, you need to install driver mschrt20.ocx (is free and available to download from the internet). In 32-bit system you must put it in C:/System32 then install it by typing 'regsvr32 mschrt20.ocx' in cosole (as Administrator).
Then create a Matlab figure and put an ActiveX object to it, save. To activate it type to Matlab's interpretator something like this:
anyone = actxcontrol('MSChart20Lib.MSChart.2');
anyone.get;
get(anyone,'ChartData')
Now you could see all the properties of the object. In guide choose the right property 'charType' and make field 'Legend' 'Visible' if you need it.
To paint a pie chart using your ActiveX object you need to set the meaning of it's field 'ChartData'. It's a cell 2xn. Use it as in the example below:
S = cell(2, 3);
S(1,: ) = {'first', 'second', 'third'} ; %legend
S(2,: ) = {1, 10, 5} ; %meanings
set(handles.activex1,'ChartData', S);
That's how it works. There some other abilities available with ActiveX control.
There are a lot of ways to understand your question:
If you want a pie chart, matlab can do that with the 'pie' function:
http://www.mathworks.com/help/techdoc/ref/pie.html
x = [1 3 0.5 2.5 2];
explode = [0 1 0 0 0];
pie(x,explode)
colormap jet
If you wanted to actually plot a circle, then you would use the 'rectangle' command with 'Curvature' settings like this:
rectangle('Position',[1,2,5,10],'Curvature',[1,1],...
'FaceColor','r')
daspect([1,1,1])
xlim([0,7])
ylim([1,13])
Or you could look at these sites for alternatives for drawing a circle:
http://blogs.mathworks.com/pick/2008/03/21/drawing-a-circle/
http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/2876
If instead you wanted polar axes:
http://www.mathworks.com/help/techdoc/ref/polar.html
figure
t = 0:.01:2*pi;
polar(t,sin(2*t).*cos(2*t),'--r')
The following is the equation for a circle (and so you'll see a red circle overlaid over the black polar plot axes:
polar(t,sin(t).^2+cos(t).^2,'--r')
I have a 2D space in which a function value is defined (you can think of it as a manifold). Now I plotted the function value using contourf and changed the colormap to something softer than jet. So far it looks quite good.
Now I want to draw a line representing the state over time in my space. That is also possible using the the plot command. But I want some more improvements: There is an additional state that is hidden for now (value 0...50). I would like the line color to change according to this hidden state. So in a sense to apply a separate colormap to the line plotted by plot like for example in a waterfall plot.
Is this (or something similar) possible using matlab?
Thanks
If you want to either use interpolated shading or have the colours change with the colour map, then you want to plot your data as a mesh and set the edgecolor property appropriately. Note that in order to plot it as a mesh, then you will need to duplicate it so that it has a size of at least 2 in each direction.
h = mesh([X(:) X(:)], [Y(:) Y(:)], [Z(:) Z(:)], [C(:) C(:)], ...
'EdgeColor', 'interp', 'FaceColor', 'none');
You may also want to look at the MeshStyle property, if you want to plot multiple lines simultaneously.
This solution is also much nicer than the one used in cline because it only creates one graphics object, rather than n.
Have a look into the cline.m function from file exchange, I think it is exactly what you need.
I can recommend the Colored line entry from the file exchange. It has good feedback and uses the color map to define the displayed colours, I've use it sucessfully on a number of projects.
I would like to plot a vertical line (I'd prefer any orientation, but I'd be happy with just vertical right now) with two-color dashes, say red-blue-red-blue-...
I know I could do it like this:
plot([1,1],[0,1],'r'),
hold on,
plot([1,1],[0,1],'--b')
However, since I need to be able to move the line, among others, it should only have a single handle. How could I do this?
EDIT
Thank you for your answers. I guess I should indeed give some more information.
I have some data that is classified into different parts. I want to be able to manually adjust the boundaries between classes. For this, I'm drawing vertical lines at the classification boundaries and use draggable to allow moving the lines.
For the boundary between the red and the blue class, I'd like to have a red/blue line.
plot(ones(10,1),linspace(0,1,10),'-bs','MarkerFaceColor','r','MarkerEdgeColor','none','linewidth',6)
is what I'm actually using at the moment. However, it's not so pretty (if I want equal spacing, it becomes a real pain, and I want to give both colors the same weight), and I would like to have the possibility to use three colors (and not with marker edge and face being different, because it makes my eyes bleed).
Unfortunately, draggable does not allow me to use multiple handles, and grouping the lines with hggroup does not seem to create a draggable object.
cline looks like a promising approach, but rainbow colors won't work for my application.
You can use the code you have, and just concatenate the handles from each line into a vector of handles. When you want to change the properties of both lines simultaneously, the SET function is able to accept the vector of handles as an argument. From the documentation for SET:
set(H,'PropertyName',PropertyValue,...)
sets the named properties to the
specified values on the object(s)
identified by H. H can be a vector of
handles, in which case set sets the
properties' values for all the
objects.
Here's an example:
h1 = plot([1 1],[0 1],'r'); %# Plot line 1
hold on;
h2 = plot([1 1],[0 1],'--b'); %# Plot line 2
hVector = [h1 h2]; %# Vector of handles
set(hVector,'XData',[2 3]); %# Shifts the x data points for both lines
UPDATE: Since you mention you are using draggable from the MathWorks File Exchange, here's an alternate solution. From the description of draggable:
A function which is called when the
object is moved can be provided as an
optional argument, so that the
movement triggers further actions.
You could then try the following solution:
Plot your two lines, saving the handle for each (i.e. h1 and h2).
Put the handle for each in the 'UserData' property of the other:
set(h1,'UserData',h2);
set(h2,'UserData',h1);
Create the following function:
function motionFcn(hMoving) %# Currently moving handle is passed in
hOther = get(hMoving,'UserData'); %# Get the other plot handle
set(hOther,'XData',get(hMoving,'XData'),... %# Update the x data
'YData',get(hMoving,'YData')); %# Update the y data
end
Turn on draggable for both lines, using the above function as the one called when either object is moved:
draggable(h1,#motionFcn);
draggable(h2,#motionFcn);
I've never used it, but there's a submission by Sebastian Hölz called CLINE on the Mathworks File Exchange that seems related.
I don't know how to do exactly what you want, but presumably the reason you want to do this is to have some way of distinguishing this line from other lines. Along those lines, take a look at MathWorks' documentation on 2-D line plots. Specifically, this example:
plot(x,y,'--rs','LineWidth',2,...
'MarkerEdgeColor','k',...
'MarkerFaceColor','g',...
'MarkerSize',10)
should give you plenty of ideas for variation. If you really need the two-color dashes, it might help to specify why. That way, even if we can't answer the question, perhaps we can convince you that you don't really need the two-color dashes. Since you've already ruled out the over-lapping solution, I'm fairly certain there's no solution that answers all of your needs. I'm assuming the two-colorness is the most fluid of those needs.