CPEG201L

PLOTTING
 2-D Plotting

Time Distance
 x-y plot: (sec) (Ft)

 The independent variable is usually called x 0 0

2 0.33
 The dependent variable is usually called y
4 4.13
 Consider this x-y data:
6 6.29
 Time is the independent variable (x-axis)
8 6.85
 and distance is the dependent variable (y-axis) 10 11.19
12 13.19
%Define x and y and call the plot function
x = [0:2:18]; 14 13.96
y = [0 0.33 4.13 6.29 6.85 11.19 13.19 13.96 16.33 18.17]; 16 16.33
plot(x,y) 18 18.17
Titles and Labels

 Title
 To add an apostrophe to a title (or other annotation) you must enter the single
quote twice – otherwise MATLAB interprets the single apostrophe as the end of
the string.
 X axis label, Y axis label
 Often it is useful to add a grid

title(‘Razan''s lab experiment 1')

xlabel('time (sec)')
ylabel('distance (ft)')
grid on
Creating multiple plots

 MATLAB overwrites the figure window every time you request a new plot
 To open a new figure window, use the figure function – for example figure(2)
Plots with multiple lines (hold on)

 hold on
 Freezes the current plot, so that an
additional plot can be overlaid
 When you use this approach, the
additional line is drawn in red – the
default drawing color is blue
 To unfreeze the plot, use the hold off
command
Plots with multiple lines using one
command

 You can also create multiple lines on a single graph with one command.
 Each set of ordered pairs will produce a new line.
Plots with multiple lines with the same x
value

 Use alternating sets of ordered pairs

 Or group the y values into a matrix
Plot command with a single matrix

 If you use the plot command with a single matrix, MATLAB plots the values
versus the index number
 Usually, this type of data is plotted on a bar graph
 When plotted on an x-y grid, it is often called a line graph
Try plot(peaks(100))

 The peaks(100) function creates a 100x100 array of values. Since this is a

plot of a single variable, we get 100 different line plots.
Plots of Complex Arrays

 If the input to the plot command is a single array of complex numbers,

MATLAB plots the real component on the x-axis and the imaginary
component on the yaxis
Multiple arrays of complex numbers

 If you try to use two arrays of complex numbers in the plot function, the
imaginary components are ignored
Line, Color and Mark Style

Mark Style Indicator

point .
 You can change the appearance of
your plots by selecting: circle o

x-mark x
 line styles, color, mark styles
Color Indicator plus +
 If you don’t specify style, the default is
star *
used which is: line style – none, mark blue b
style – none, and color – blue green g
square s

 Specify your choices in a string. red r

diamond d

triangle down v
 For example Line Style Indicator cyan c
triangle up ^
 plot(x,y,':ok’) solid - magent m
triangle left <
a
 dotted line, circles, black dotted :
yellow y triangle right >
dash-dot -.
pentagram p
dashed -- black k
hexagram h
Axis scaling

 MATLAB automatically scales each plot to completely fill the

graph
 If you want to specify a different axis – use the axis command
axis([xmin,xmax,ymin,ymax])
Legends and Textbox
Improving your labels

 Use Greek letters in your labels by putting a backslash (\) before the name
of the letter.
 title(‘\alpha \beta \gamma’) creates the plot title α β γ

 Use curly brackets to create a superscript

 title(‘x^{2}’) → gives 𝒙𝟐

 Use underscore to create a subscript

 title(‘x_2’) → gives 𝒙𝟐
Subplots

 The subplot command allows you to subdivide the graphing window into a
grid of m rows and n columns.
 subplot(m,n,p)
 m = rows, n = columns, p = location.
 Example: subplot(2,2,1)
Peaks

-5 2
2
0 2
0
-2 -2
y x

3 4
Other Types of 2-D Plots

 Bar Graphs and Pie Charts

 Histograms
 X-Y graphs with two y axes
 Function Plots
 Bar Graphs and Pie Charts

 MATLAB includes a whole

family of bar graphs and pie
charts
 bar(x) – vertical bar graph
 barh(x) – horizontal bar graph
 bar3(x) – 3-D vertical bar
graph
 bar3h(x) – 3-D horizontal bar
graph
 pie(x) – pie chart
 pie3(x) – 3-D pie chart
Histograms

 A histogram is a plot showing the distribution of a set of values

Defaults to 10 bins
X-Y Graphs with Two Y Axes

 Sometimes it is useful to overlay two x-y plots onto the same figure.
However, if the order of magnitude of the y values are quite different, it
may be difficult to see how the data behave.
 Scaling Depends on the largest value plotted.

 It is difficult to see how the blue line behaves, because the scale isn’t
appropriate.
X-Y Graphs with Two Y Axes - plotyy

 The plotyy function allows you to use two scales on a single graph
X-Y Graphs with Two Y Axes – Labels

 But how do you add the right axis label?

 Give the plot a name – also called a ‘handle’
Function Plots

 Function plots allow you to use a function as input to a plot command,

instead of a set of ordered pairs of x-y values
 fplot('sin(x)',[-2*pi,2*pi])
 sin(x): function input as a string
 [-2*pi,2*pi]: range of the independent variable – in this case x
Three-Dimensional Plotting

Line plots, Surface plots, Contour plots

Line Plots

 These plots require a set of order triples (x-y-z values) as input

 The z-axis is labeled the same way the x and y axes are labeled
 MATLAB uses a coordinate system consistent with the right-hand rule
Surface Plots

 Represent x-y-z data as a surface

 mesh – mesh plot
 surf – surface plot

 Both mesh and surf can be used to good effect with a single two-dimensional matrix
Surface Plots – mesh

 If x and y are unknown, the x and y coordinates are the matrix index numbers
 If we know the values of x and y that correspond to our z values, we can plot against
those values instead of the index numbers
Surface Plots – surf

 surf plots are similar to mesh plots

 they create a 3-D colored surface instead of an open mesh
 syntax is the same
Editing Plots from the Menu Bar

 In addition to controlling the way your plots look by

using MATLAB commands, you can also edit a plot
once you’ve created it using the menu bar
 Another demonstration function built into MATLAB is
sphere
 Once you’ve created a plot you can adjust it using
the menu bar
 In this picture the insert menu has been selected
 Notice you can use it to add labels, legends, a title and
other annotations
Saving your plots

 Save the figure from file → Save as →

You’ll be presented with several choices
of file format such as:
 MATLAB Figure
 JPEG Figure