I have a Matlab project in which I need to make a GUI that receives two mathematical functions from the user. I then need to find their intersection point, and then plot the two functions.
So, I have several questions:
Do you know of any algorithm I can use to find the intersection point? Of course I prefer one to which I can already find a Matlab code for in the internet. Also, I prefer it wouldn't be the Newton-Raphson method.
I should point out I'm not allowed to use built in Matlab functions.
I'm having trouble plotting the functions. What I basically did is this:
fun_f = get(handles.Function_f,'string');
fun_g = get(handles.Function_g,'string');
cla % To clear axes when plotting new functions
ezplot(fun_f);
hold on
ezplot(fun_g);
axis ([-20 20 -10 10]);
The problem is that sometimes, the axes limits do not allow me to see the other function. This will happen, if, for example, I will have one function as log10(x) and the other as y=1, the y=1 will not be shown.
I have already tried using all the axis commands but to no avail. If I set the limits myself, the functions only exist in certain limits. I have no idea why.
3 . How do I display numbers in a static text? Or better yet, string with numbers?
I want to display something like x0 = [root1]; x1 = [root2]. The only solution I found was turning the roots I found into strings but I prefer not to.
As for the equation solver, this is the code I have so far. I know it is very amateurish but it seemed like the most "intuitive" way. Also keep in mind it is very very not finished (for example, it will show me only two solutions, I'm not so sure how to display multiple roots in one static text as they are strings, hence question #3).
function [Sol] = SolveEquation(handles)
fun_f = get(handles.Function_f,'string');
fun_g = get(handles.Function_g,'string');
f = inline(fun_f);
g = inline(fun_g);
i = 1;
Sol = 0;
for x = -10:0.1:10;
if (g(x) - f(x)) >= 0 && (g(x) - f(x)) < 0.01
Sol(i) = x;
i = i + 1;
end
end
solution1 = num2str(Sol(1));
solution2 = num2str(Sol(2));
set(handles.roots1,'string',solution1);
set(handles.roots2,'string',solution2);
The if condition is because the subtraction will never give me an absolute zero, and this seems to somewhat solve it, though it's really not perfect, sometimes it will give me more than two very similar solutions (e.g 1.9 and 2).
The range of x is arbitrary, chosen by me.
I know this is a long question, so I really appreciate your patience.
Thank you very much in advance!
Question 1
I think this is a more robust method for finding the roots given data at discrete points. Looking for when the difference between the functions changes sign, which corresponds to them crossing over.
S=sign(g(x)-f(x));
h=find(diff(S)~=0)
Sol=x(h);
If you can evaluate the function wherever you want there are more methods you can use, but it depends on the size of the domain and the accuracy you want as to what is best. For example, if you don't need a great deal of accurac, your f and g functions are simple to calculate, and you can't or don't want to use derivatives, you can get a more accurate root using the same idea as the first code snippet, but do it iteratively:
G=inline('sin(x)');
F=inline('1');
g=vectorize(G);
f=vectorize(F);
tol=1e-9;
tic()
x = -2*pi:.001:pi;
S=sign(g(x)-f(x));
h=find(diff(S)~=0); % Find where two lines cross over
Sol=zeros(size(h));
Err=zeros(size(h));
if ~isempty(h) % There are some cross-over points
for i=1:length(h) % For each point, improve the approximation
xN=x(h(i):h(i)+1);
err=1;
while(abs(err)>tol) % Iteratively improve aproximation
S=sign(g(xN)-f(xN));
hF=find(diff(S)~=0);
xN=xN(hF:hF+1);
[~,I]=min(abs(f(xN)-g(xN)));
xG=xN(I);
err=f(xG)-g(xG);
xN=linspace(xN(1),xN(2),15);
end
Sol(i)=xG;
Err(i)=f(xG)-g(xG);
end
else % No crossover points - lines could meet at tangents
[h,I]=findpeaks(-abs(g(x)-f(x)));
Sol=x(I(abs(f(x(I))-g(x(I)))<1e-5));
Err=f(Sol)-g(Sol)
end
% We also have to check each endpoint
if abs(f(x(end))-g(x(end)))<tol && abs(Sol(end)-x(end))>1e-12
Sol=[Sol x(end)];
Err=[Err g(x(end))-f(x(end))];
end
if abs(f(x(1))-g(x(1)))<tol && abs(Sol(1)-x(1))>1e-12
Sol=[x(1) Sol];
Err=[g(x(1))-f(x(1)) Err];
end
toc()
Sol
Err
This will "zoom" in to the region around each suspected root, and iteratively improve the accuracy. You can tweak the parameters to see whether they give better behaviour (the tolerance tol, the 15, number of new points to generate, could be higher probably).
Question 2
You would probably be best off avoiding ezplot, and using plot, which gives you greater control. You can vectorise inline functions so that you can evaluate them like anonymous functions, as I did in the previous code snippet, using
f=inline('x^2')
F=vectorize(f)
F(1:5)
and this should make plotting much easier:
plot(x,f(x),'b',Sol,f(Sol),'ro',x,g(x),'k',Sol,G(Sol),'ro')
Question 3
I'm not sure why you don't want to display your roots as strings, what's wrong with this:
text(xPos,yPos,['x0=' num2str(Sol(1))]);
In Matlab, I've got several points in the 3D space. Those points represent a rope and I would like to draw a line linking all those points. Here is my problem: How the oraganization of those points should be done to have a "simple" and "more or less straigth line". In other words I would like to draw a line linking all the points from the first to the last one but not "going back". Maybe with a simple image i can explain better my problem:
This is what the code should do:
This is what the code shouldn't do:
Some idea of how can I achieve the intended result? How can I organize the points? I'm working with Matlab but if you know any paper where I can read how to do this it will be fine. Thank you.
If you just don't want to go back in the upper direction, the solution that #Dan suggested should be fine. Sort them in that direction before connecting.
However, if that is not a requirement but you are actually looking for a solution without ugly crossings that is as short as possible, you may want to look into solutions for the travelling salesman problem.
If you define the distance between 1 and 9 to be zero, the solution you find to the travelling salesman problem should give you a nice and short rope.
If you want to go for the TSP approach but get a little lost, just try a 'furthest insertion' start position or '2 opt' improvements as that is likely going to give a big improvement over random path selection already with minimal effort.
OK. I've found the right answer (by Gunther Struyf): Sort Coordinates Points in Matlab
In order to visualize the final result just add to Gunther's code the following lines:
row=data(:,1);
col=data(:,2);
figure
scatter(row,col,'r');
hold on
line(row(result),col(result));
The following code shows the same algorithm but for a 3D implementation:
close all;
data = [2,2, 2; 2,3,2 ; 1,2,3 ; 1,3,3 ; 2,1,3 ; 1,1,3 ; 3,2,4 ; 3,3,4 ; 3,1,5; 5,4,6; 7,3,8; 8,9,7; 9,4,7; 6,2,5; 5,8,6; 9,3,8;6,9,2];
row=data(:,1);
col=data(:,2);
frame=data(:,3);
dist = pdist2(data,data);
N = size(data,1);
result = NaN(1,N);
result(1) = 1; % first point is first row in data matrix
for ii=2:N
dist(:,result(ii-1)) = Inf;
[~, closest_idx] = min(dist(result(ii-1),:));
result(ii) = closest_idx;
end
figure
%Ploting the points directly (without sorting)
subplot(2,1,1);
scatter3(row,col,frame,'r');
hold on;
line(row,col,frame);
%Ploting after sorting
subplot(2,1,2);
scatter3(row,col,frame,'r');
hold on
line(row(result),col(result),frame(result));
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I think everyone would agree that the MATLAB language is not pretty, or particularly consistent. But nevermind! We still have to use it to get things done.
What are your favourite tricks for making things easier? Let's have one per answer so people can vote them up if they agree. Also, try to illustrate your answer with an example.
Using the built-in profiler to see where the hot parts of my code are:
profile on
% some lines of code
profile off
profile viewer
or just using the built in tic and toc to get quick timings:
tic;
% some lines of code
toc;
Directly extracting the elements of a matrix that satisfy a particular condition, using logical arrays:
x = rand(1,50) .* 100;
xpart = x( x > 20 & x < 35);
Now xpart contains only those elements of x which lie in the specified range.
Provide quick access to other function documentation by adding a "SEE ALSO" line to the help comments. First, you must include the name of the function in all caps as the first comment line. Do your usual comment header stuff, then put SEE ALSO with a comma separated list of other related functions.
function y = transmog(x)
%TRANSMOG Transmogrifies a matrix X using reverse orthogonal eigenvectors
%
% Usage:
% y = transmog(x)
%
% SEE ALSO
% UNTRANSMOG, TRANSMOG2
When you type "help transmog" at the command line, you will see all the comments in this comment header, with hyperlinks to the comment headers for the other functions listed.
Turn a matrix into a vector using a single colon.
x = rand(4,4);
x(:)
Vectorizing loops. There are lots of ways to do this, and it is entertaining to look for loops in your code and see how they can be vectorized. The performance is astonishingly faster with vector operations!
Anonymous functions, for a few reasons:
to make a quick function for one-off uses, like 3x^2+2x+7. (see listing below) This is useful for functions like quad and fminbnd that take functions as arguments. It's also convenient in scripts (.m files that don't start with a function header) since unlike true functions you can't include subfunctions.
for closures -- although anonymous functions are a little limiting as there doesn't seem to be a way to have assignment within them to mutate state.
.
% quick functions
f = #(x) 3*x.^2 + 2*x + 7;
t = (0:0.001:1);
plot(t,f(t),t,f(2*t),t,f(3*t));
% closures (linfunc below is a function that returns a function,
% and the outer functions arguments are held for the lifetime
% of the returned function.
linfunc = #(m,b) #(x) m*x+b;
C2F = linfunc(9/5, 32);
F2C = linfunc(5/9, -32*5/9);
Matlab's bsxfun, arrayfun, cellfun, and structfun are quite interesting and often save a loop.
M = rand(1000, 1000);
v = rand(1000, 1);
c = bsxfun(#plus, M, v);
This code, for instance, adds column-vector v to each column of matrix M.
Though, in performance critical parts of your application you should benchmark these functions versus the trivial for-loop because often loops are still faster.
LaTeX mode for formulas in graphs: In one of the recent releases (R2006?) you add the additional arguments ,'Interpreter','latex' at the end of a function call and it will use LaTeX rendering. Here's an example:
t=(0:0.001:1);
plot(t,sin(2*pi*[t ; t+0.25]));
xlabel('t');
ylabel('$\hat{y}_k=sin 2\pi (t+{k \over 4})$','Interpreter','latex');
legend({'$\hat{y}_0$','$\hat{y}_1$'},'Interpreter','latex');
Not sure when they added it, but it works with R2006b in the text(), title(), xlabel(), ylabel(), zlabel(), and even legend() functions. Just make sure the syntax you are using is not ambiguous (so with legend() you need to specify the strings as a cell array).
Using xlim and ylim to draw vertical and horizontal lines. Examples:
Draw a horizontal line at y=10:
line(xlim, [10 10])
Draw vertical line at x=5:
line([5 5], ylim)
Here's a quick example:
I find the comma separated list syntax quite useful for building function calls:
% Build a list of args, like so:
args = {'a', 1, 'b', 2};
% Then expand this into arguments:
output = func(args{:})
Here's a bunch of nonobvious functions that are useful from time to time:
mfilename (returns the name of the currently running MATLAB script)
dbstack (gives you access to the names & line numbers of the matlab function stack)
keyboard (stops execution and yields control to the debugging prompt; this is why there's a K in the debug prompt K>>
dbstop error (automatically puts you in debug mode stopped at the line that triggers an error)
I like using function handles for lots of reasons. For one, they are the closest thing I've found in MATLAB to pointers, so you can create reference-like behavior for objects. There are a few neat (and simpler) things you can do with them, too. For example, replacing a switch statement:
switch number,
case 1,
outargs = fcn1(inargs);
case 2,
outargs = fcn2(inargs);
...
end
%
%can be turned into
%
fcnArray = {#fcn1, #fcn2, ...};
outargs = fcnArray{number}(inargs);
I just think little things like that are cool.
Using nargin to set default values for optional arguments and using nargout to set optional output arguments. Quick example
function hLine=myplot(x,y,plotColor,markerType)
% set defaults for optional paramters
if nargin<4, markerType='none'; end
if nargin<3, plotColor='k'; end
hL = plot(x,y,'linetype','-', ...
'color',plotColor, ...
'marker',markerType, ...
'markerFaceColor',plotColor,'markerEdgeColor',plotColor);
% return handle of plot object if required
if nargout>0, hLine = hL; end
Invoking Java code from Matlab
cellfun and arrayfun for automated for loops.
Oh, and reverse an array
v = 1:10;
v_reverse = v(length(v):-1:1);
conditional arguments in the left-hand side of an assignment:
t = (0:0.005:10)';
x = sin(2*pi*t);
x(x>0.5 & t<5) = 0.5;
% This limits all values of x to a maximum of 0.5, where t<5
plot(t,x);
Know your axis properties! There are all sorts of things you can set to tweak the default plotting properties to do what you want:
set(gca,'fontsize',8,'linestyleorder','-','linewidth',0.3,'xtick',1:2:9);
(as an example, sets the fontsize to 8pt, linestyles of all new lines to all be solid and their width 0.3pt, and the xtick points to be [1 3 5 7 9])
Line and figure properties are also useful, but I find myself using axis properties the most.
Be strict with specifying dimensions when using aggregation functions like min, max, mean, diff, sum, any, all,...
For instance the line:
reldiff = diff(a) ./ a(1:end-1)
might work well to compute relative differences of elements in a vector, however in case the vector degenerates to just one element the computation fails:
>> a=rand(1,7);
>> diff(a) ./ a(1:end-1)
ans =
-0.5822 -0.9935 224.2015 0.2708 -0.3328 0.0458
>> a=1;
>> diff(a) ./ a(1:end-1)
??? Error using ==> rdivide
Matrix dimensions must agree.
If you specify the correct dimensions to your functions, this line returns an empty 1-by-0 matrix, which is correct:
>> diff(a, [], 2) ./ a(1, 1:end-1)
ans =
Empty matrix: 1-by-0
>>
The same goes for a min-function which usually computes minimums over columns on a matrix, until the matrix only consists of one row. - Then it will return the minimum over the row unless the dimension parameter states otherwise, and probably break your application.
I can almost guarantee you that consequently setting the dimensions of these aggregation functions will save you quite some debugging work later on.
At least that would have been the case for me. :)
The colon operator for the manipulation of arrays.
#ScottieT812, mentions one: flattening an array, but there's all the other variants of selecting bits of an array:
x=rand(10,10);
flattened=x(:);
Acolumn=x(:,10);
Arow=x(10,:);
y=rand(100);
firstSix=y(1:6);
lastSix=y(end-5:end);
alternate=y(1:2:end);
In order to be able to quickly test a function, I use nargin like so:
function result = multiply(a, b)
if nargin == 0 %no inputs provided, run using defaults for a and b
clc;
disp('RUNNING IN TEST MODE')
a = 1;
b = 2;
end
result = a*b;
Later on, I add a unit test script to test the function for different input conditions.
Using ismember() to merge data organized by text identfiers. Useful when you are analyzing differing periods when entries, in my case company symbols, come and go.
%Merge B into A based on Text identifiers
UniverseA = {'A','B','C','D'};
UniverseB = {'A','C','D'};
DataA = [20 40 60 80];
DataB = [30 50 70];
MergeData = NaN(length(UniverseA),2);
MergeData(:,1) = DataA;
[tf, loc] = ismember(UniverseA, UniverseB);
MergeData(tf,2) = DataB(loc(tf));
MergeData =
20 30
40 NaN
60 50
80 70
Asking 'why' (useful for jarring me out of a Matlab runtime-fail debugging trance at 3am...)
Executing a Simulink model directly from a script (rather than interactively) using the sim command. You can do things like take parameters from a workspace variable, and repeatedly run sim in a loop to simulate something while varying the parameter to see how the behavior changes, and graph the results with whatever graphical commands you like. Much easier than trying to do this interactively, and it gives you much more flexibility than the Simulink "oscilloscope" blocks when visualizing the results. (although you can't use it to see what's going on in realtime while the simulation is running)
A really important thing to know is the DstWorkspace and SrcWorkspace options of the simset command. These control where the "To Workspace" and "From Workspace" blocks get and put their results. Dstworkspace defaults to the current workspace (e.g. if you call sim from inside a function the "To Workspace" blocks will show up as variables accessible from within that same function) but SrcWorkspace defaults to the base workspace and if you want to encapsulate your call to sim you'll want to set SrcWorkspace to current so there is a clean interface to providing/retrieving simulation input parameters and outputs. For example:
function Y=run_my_sim(t,input1,params)
% runs "my_sim.mdl"
% with a From Workspace block referencing I1 as an input signal
% and parameters referenced as fields of the "params" structure
% and output retrieved from a To Workspace block with name O1.
opt = simset('SrcWorkspace','current','DstWorkspace','current');
I1 = struct('time',t,'signals',struct('values',input1,'dimensions',1));
Y = struct;
Y.t = sim('my_sim',t,opt);
Y.output1 = O1.signals.values;
Contour plots with [c,h]=contour and clabel(c,h,'fontsize',fontsize). I usually use the fontsize parameter to reduce the font size so the numbers don't run into each other. This is great for viewing the value of 2-D functions without having to muck around with 3D graphs.
Vectorization:
function iNeedle = findClosest(hay,needle)
%FINDCLOSEST find the indicies of the closest elements in an array.
% Given two vectors [A,B], findClosest will find the indicies of the values
% in vector A closest to the values in vector B.
[hay iOrgHay] = sort(hay(:)'); %#ok must have row vector
% Use histogram to find indices of elements in hay closest to elements in
% needle. The bins are centered on values in hay, with the edges on the
% midpoint between elements.
[iNeedle iNeedle] = histc(needle,[-inf hay+[diff(hay)/2 inf]]); %#ok
% Reversing the sorting.
iNeedle = iOrgHay(iNeedle);
Using persistent (static) variables when running an online algorithm. It may speed up the code in areas like Bayesian machine learning where the model is trained iteratively for the new samples. For example, for computing the independent loglikelihoods, I compute the loglikelihood initially from scratch and update it by summing this previously computed loglikelihood and the additional loglikelihood.
Instead of giving a more specialized machine learning problem, let me give a general online averaging code which I took from here:
function av = runningAverage(x)
% The number of values entered so far - declared persistent.
persistent n;
% The sum of values entered so far - declared persistent.
persistent sumOfX;
if x == 'reset' % Initialise the persistent variables.
n = 0;
sumOfX = 0;
av = 0;
else % A data value has been added.
n = n + 1;
sumOfX = sumOfX + x;
av = sumOfX / n; % Update the running average.
end
Then, the calls will give the following results
runningAverage('reset')
ans = 0
>> runningAverage(5)
ans = 5
>> runningAverage(10)
ans = 7.5000
>> runningAverage(3)
ans = 6
>> runningAverage('reset')
ans = 0
>> runningAverage(8)
ans = 8
I'm surprised that while people mentioned the logical array approach of indexing an array, nobody mentioned the find command.
e.g. if x is an NxMxO array
x(x>20) works by generating an NxMxO logical array and using it to index x (which can be bad if you have large arrays and are looking for a small subset
x(find(x>20)) works by generating list (i.e. 1xwhatever) of indices of x that satisfy x>20, and indexing x by it. "find" should be used more than it is, in my experience.
More what I would call 'tricks'
you can grow/append to arrays and cell arrays if you don't know the size you'll need, by using end + 1 (works with higher dimensions too, so long as the dimensions of the slice match -- so you'll have to initialize x to something other than [] in that case). Not good for numerics but for small dynamic lists of things (or cell arrays), e.g. parsing files.
e.g.
>> x=[1,2,3]
x = 1 2 3
>> x(end+1)=4
x = 1 2 3 4
Another think many people don't know is that for works on any dim 1 array, so to continue the example
>> for n = x;disp(n);end
1
2
3
4
Which means if all you need is the members of x you don't need to index them.
This also works with cell arrays but it's a bit annoying because as it walks them the element is still wrapped in a cell:
>> for el = {1,2,3,4};disp(el);end
[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
So to get at the elements you have to subscript them
>> for el = {1,2,3,4};disp(el{1});end
1
2
3
4
I can't remember if there is a nicer way around that.
-You can make a Matlab shortcut to an initialization file called startup.m. Here, I define formatting, precision of the output, and plot parameters for my Matlab session (for example, I use a larger plot axis/font size so that .fig's can be seen plainly when I put them in presentations.) See a good blog post from one of the developers about it http://blogs.mathworks.com/loren/2009/03/03/whats-in-your-startupm/ .
-You can load an entire numerical ascii file using the "load" function. This isn't particularly fast, but gets the job done quickly for prototyping (shouldn't that be the Matlab motto?)
-As mentioned, the colon operator and vectorization are lifesavers. Screw loops.
x=repmat([1:10],3,1); % say, x is an example array of data
l=x>=3; % l is a logical vector (1s/0s) to highlight those elements in the array that would meet a certain condition.
N=sum(sum(l));% N is the number of elements that meet that given condition.
cheers -- happy scripting!