MATLAB Function Reference

Plotting and Data Visualization

Basic Plots and Graphs
bar	Vertical bar chart
barh	Horizontal bar chart
hist	Plot histograms
histc	Histogram count
hold	Hold current graph
loglog	Plot using log-log scales
pie	Pie plot
plot	Plot vectors or matrices.
polar	Polar coordinate plot
semilogx	Semi-log scale plot
semilogy	Semi-log scale plot
subplot	Create axes in tiled positions
Three-Dimensional Plotting
bar3	Vertical 3-D bar chart
bar3h	Horizontal 3-D bar chart
comet3	3-D comet plot
cylinder	Generate cylinder
fill3	Draw filled 3-D polygons in 3-space
plot3	Plot lines and points in 3-D space
quiver3	3-D quiver (or velocity) plot
slice	Volumetric slice plot
sphere	Generate sphere
stem3	Plot discrete surface data
waterfall	Waterfall plot
Plot Annotation and Grids
clabel	Add contour labels to a contour plot
datetick	Date formatted tick labels
grid	Grid lines for 2-D and 3-D plots
gtext	Place text on a 2-D graph using a mouse
legend	Graph legend for lines and patches
plotyy	Plot graphs with Y tick labels on the left and right
title	Titles for 2-D and 3-D plots
xlabel	X-axis labels for 2-D and 3-D plots
ylabel	Y-axis labels for 2-D and 3-D plots
zlabel	Z-axis labels for 3-D plots
Surface, Mesh, and Contour Plots
contour	Contour (level curves) plot
contourc	Contour computation
contourf	Filled contour plot
hidden	Mesh hidden line removal mode
meshc	Combination mesh/contourplot
mesh	3-D mesh with reference plane
peaks	A sample function of two variables
surf	3-D shaded surface graph
surface	Create surface low-level objects
surfc	Combination surf/contourplot
surfl	3-D shaded surface with lighting
trimesh	Triangular mesh plot
trisurf	Triangular surface plot
Volume Visualization
coneplot	Plot velocity vectors as cones in 3-D vector field
contourslice	Draw contours in volume slice plane
curl	Compute the curl and angular velocity of a vector field
divergence	Compute the divergence of a vector field
flow	Generate scalar volume data
interpstreamspeed	Interpolate streamline vertices from vector-field magnitudes
isocaps	Compute isosurface end-cap geometry
isocolors	Compute the colors of isosurface vertices
isonormals	Compute normals of isosurface vertices
isosurface	Extract isosurface data from volume data
reducepatch	Reduce the number of patch faces
reducevolume	Reduce number of elements in volume data set
shrinkfaces	Reduce the size of patch faces
slice	Draw slice planes in volume
smooth3	Smooth 3-D data
stream2	Compute 2-D stream line data
stream3	Compute 3-D stream line data
streamline	Draw stream lines from 2- or 3-D vector data
streamparticles	Draws stream particles from vector volume data
streamribbon	Draws stream ribbons from vector volume data
streamslice	Draws well-spaced stream lines from vector volume data
streamtube	Draws stream tubes from vector volume data
surf2patch	Convert srface data to patch data
subvolume	Extract subset of volume data set
volumebounds	Return coordinate and color limits for volume (scalar and vector)
Domain Generation
griddata	Data gridding and surface fitting
meshgrid	Generation of X and Y arrays for 3-D plots
Specialized Plotting
area	Area plot
box	Axis box for 2-D and 3-D plots
comet	Comet plot
compass	Compass plot
errorbar	Plot graph with error bars
ezcontour	Easy to use contour plotter
ezcontourf	Easy to use filled contour plotter
ezmesh	Easy to use 3-D mesh plotter
ezmeshc	Easy to use combination mesh/contour plotter
ezplot	Easy to use function plotter
ezplot3	Easy to use 3-D parametric curve plotter
ezpolar	Easy to use polar coordinate plotter
ezsurf	Easy to use 3-D colored surface plotter
ezsurfc	Easy to use combination surface/contour plotter
feather	Feather plot
fill	Draw filled 2-D polygons
fplot	Plot a function
pareto	Pareto char
pie3	3-D pie plot
plotmatrix	Scatter plot matrix
pcolor	Pseudocolor (checkerboard) plot
rose	Plot rose or angle histogram
quiver	Quiver (or velocity) plot
ribbon	Ribbon plot
stairs	Stairstep graph
scatter	Scatter plot
scatter3	3-D scatter plot
stem	Plot discrete sequence data
convhull	Convex hull
delaunay	Delaunay triangulation
dsearch	Search Delaunay triangulation for nearest point
inpolygon	True for points inside a polygonal region
polyarea	Area of polygon
tsearch	Search for enclosing Delaunay triangle
voronoi	Voronoi diagram
View Control
camdolly	Move camera position and target
camlookat	View specific objects
camorbit	Orbit about camera target
campan	Rotate camera target about camera position
campos	Set or get camera position
camproj	Set or get projection type
camroll	Rotate camera about viewing axis
camtarget	Set or get camera target
camup	Set or get camera up-vector
camva	Set or get camera view angle
camzoom	Zoom camera in or out
daspect	Set or get data aspect ratio
pbaspect	Set or get plot box aspect ratio
view	3-D graph viewpoint specification.
viewmtx	Generate view transformation matrices
xlim	Set or get the current x-axis limits
ylim	Set or get the current y-axis limits
zlim	Set or get the current z-axis limits
Lighting
camlight	Cerate or position Light
light	Light object creation function
lighting	Lighting mode
lightangle	Position light in sphereical coordinates
material	Material reflectance mode
Transparency
alpha	Set or query transparency properties for objects in current axes
alphamap	Specify the figure alphamap
alim	Set or query the axes alpha limits
Color Operations
brighten	Brighten or darken color map
caxis	Pseudocolor axis scaling
colorbar	Display color bar (color scale)
colordef	Set up color defaults
colormap	Set the color look-up table (list of colormaps)
graymon	Graphics figure defaults set for grayscale monitor
hsv2rgb	Hue-saturation-value to red-green-blue conversion
rgb2hsv	RGB to HSVconversion
rgbplot	Plot color map
shading	Color shading mode
spinmap	Spin the colormap
surfnorm	3-D surface normals
whitebg	Change axes background color for plots
Colormaps
autumn	Shades of red and yellow color map
bone	Gray-scale with a tinge of blue color map
contrast	Gray color map to enhance image contrast
cool	Shades of cyan and magenta color map
copper	Linear copper-tone color map
flag	Alternating red, white, blue, and black color map
gray	Linear gray-scale color map
hot	Black-red-yellow-white color map
hsv	Hue-saturation-value (HSV) color map
jet	Variant of HSV
lines	Line color colormap
prism	Colormap of prism colors
spring	Shades of magenta and yellow color map
summer	Shades of green and yellow colormap
winter	Shades of blue and green color map
Printing
orient	Hardcopy paper orientation
pagesetupdlg	Page position dialog box
print	Print graph or save graph to file
printdlg	Print dialog box
printopt	Configure local printer defaults
saveas	Save figure to graphic file
Handle Graphics, General
allchild	Find all children of specified objects
copyobj	Make a copy of a graphics object and its children
findall	Find all graphics objects (including hidden handles)
findobj	Find objects with specified property values
gcbo	Return object whose callback is currently executing
gco	Return handle of current object
get	Get object properties
rotate	Rotate objects about specified origin and direction
ishandle	True for graphics objects
set	Set object properties
Working with Application Data
getappdata	Get value of application data
isappdata	True if application data exists
rmappdata	Remove application data
setappdata	Specify application data
Handle Graphics, Object Creation
axes	Create Axes object
figure	Create Figure (graph) windows
image	Create Image (2-D matrix)
light	Create Light object (illuminates Patch and Surface)
line	Create Line object (3-D polylines)
patch	Create Patch object (polygons)
rectangle	Create Rectangle object (2-D rectangle)
surface	Create Surface (quadrilaterals)
text	Create Text object (character strings)
uicontextmenu	Create context menu (popup associated with object)
Handle Graphics, Figure Windows
capture	Screen capture of the current figure
clc	Clear figure window
clf	Clear figure
close	Close specified window
closereq	Default close request function
gcf	Get current figure handle
newplot	Graphics M-file preamble for NextPlot property
refresh	Refresh figure
saveas	Save figure or model to desired output format
Handle Graphics, Axes
axis	Plot axis scaling and appearance
cla	Clear Axes
gca	Get current Axes handle
Object Manipulation
reset	Reset axis or figure
rotate3d	Interactively rotate the view of a 3-D plot
selectmoveresize	Interactively select, move, or resize objects
Interactive User Input
ginput	Graphical input from a mouse or cursor
zoom	Zoom in and out on a 2-D plot
Region of Interest
dragrect	Drag XOR rectangles with mouse
drawnow	Complete any pending drawing
rbbox	Rubberband box

Multidimensional Array Functions

Graphical User Interfaces