Matlab GUI Tutorial - Plotting Data to Axes

31 Oct 2007 Quan Quach 41 comments 17462 views

Introduction

In this Matlab GUI tutorial, you will learn how to create and use the Axes component. The Axes component allows you to display graphics, such as graphs and images on your GUI. In this tutorial, we will create two axes on the GUI and plot some simple data onto it. In addition, we will include a reset button to clear the axes and we will also add the standard toolbar to allow the user to zoom, pan, and query the plot.

GUI with two axes and toolbar

This tutorial is written for those with little or no experience creating a Matlab GUI (Graphical User Interface). If you’re new to creating GUIs in Matlab, you should visit this tutorial first. Basic knowledge of Matlab is recommended. Matlab version 2007a is used in writing this tutorial. Both earlier versions and new versions should be compatible as well (as long as it isan’t too outdated). Let’s get started!

Create the Visual Aspect of the GUI

First, open up Matlab. Go to the command window and type in guide.
You should see the following screen appear. Choose the first option Blank GUI (Default).
Click on and add two Axes components to the GUI figure. Next, click on and add three Pushbutton components onto the GUI figure.
Double click the Axes component to bring up the Property Inspector. Change the Tag property to axes1, which should already be the default name. Additionally, make sure the other Axes component’s Tag property is named axes2.
Next, let’s modify the properties of the Pushbutton components. Double click on one of the Pushbutton components. Change the String property to Plot Axes 1, and the Tag property to plotAxes1_pushbutton, as shown below.

Similarly, double click on the next pushbutton and change the String property to Plot Axes 2 and change the Tag property to plotAxes2_pushbutton.

Finally, double click on the final pushbutton and change the String property to Clear Axes and change the Tag property to clearAxes_pushbutton.
Here’s what your figure should look like after you add the components and modify them.
Save your GUI wherever you please with your desired filename.

Pages: 1 2

41 Responses to “Matlab GUI Tutorial - Plotting Data to Axes”

on 12 Jan 2008 at 12:48 pm 1Vaibhav Bedia

When i close MATLAB and start guide again my axes loses its TAG and hence becomes invisible.How do i solve this?
on 20 Jan 2008 at 4:48 pm 2Alex

nice one! U need to write some more stuff for beginners
on 13 Feb 2008 at 3:59 pm 3Saikat

Thank you so much ….. I love your style and find your instructions very helpful.
Going through the programs you have written for us, the beginners, I feel more confident of writing my own codes ………..
Thank you once again ……..
on 17 Feb 2008 at 11:03 am 4Tanty

What a great tutorial.
Im working on my final project, so this tutorial help me solve my problem writing the code for axes.
Thanks.
on 17 Mar 2008 at 9:57 pm 5lovejoy

how to plot a resultant vector in GUI ex.10N+5N
on 26 Mar 2008 at 4:28 am 6nola

very nice tutorial..however i had a query for you..
when i do a zoom on the image..and click one pushbutton to make an action..the image return to its initial dimensions(i loose the zoom)…could you help me on this subject?
on 26 Mar 2008 at 12:37 pm 7Daniel Sutoyo

Hi Nola

good question… although I haven’t tried to code it yet, what you need to do is to get the new axes info and store it somewhere.

For example, your axes is called handles.axes1. You will have to use the get() and get the min,max axis on handles.axes1 and store in a variable for example myaxis.

Now in your pushbutton function… when you have a plot command, make sure you use the axis info in myaxis
on 10 Apr 2008 at 3:43 am 8andy

How do we plot a graph where the function of graph is key in by user?
I mean we can plot many different function of graph just by changing function?
on 17 Apr 2008 at 11:42 am 9harsha

very nice, it helped me a lot. Thanks, I love the way u have explained the whole process.. very clear!
on 22 Apr 2008 at 9:57 am 10Alfredo Huerta Duran

Muy buena tu pagina, la estare consultando a menudo. De antemano te doy las gracias por la futuras visitas a tu tutorial. Alfredo Huerta
on 13 Jun 2008 at 11:58 pm 11shanshui281

Thank you very much !
I learna lot of skills from this websit!
on 22 Jun 2008 at 10:56 pm 12abhijit betal

Dear Sir,
This tutorial helps me a lot. Thanks for it. Will you provide a tutorial on basic concept of the GUIDE ?
With thanks
Abhijit Betal
on 23 Jun 2008 at 12:40 pm 13sathya

I used a series of checkboxes, each to plot the derivatives of a function.
When I click on the checkbox, the plot sholud appear and when I unclick it, the plot should disappear. I used ‘hold on’ on each checkbox callboxes, so that when I click all of them I should see all the plots. I tried using cla, but it clears the whole axes.
If I uncheck the first checkbox, only the plot corresponding to it should disappear.

Any help?
on 01 Jul 2008 at 3:27 am 14ahmed badr

can i ask question
i have plot between eficiency and threshold and i get max efficiency
can i get threshold on max efficiency in gui of matlab code
on 22 Jul 2008 at 2:55 pm 15Arash

Dear sir,
I want to know how to capture the coordination of my graph?
can you help me with that
on 22 Jul 2008 at 5:01 pm 16Quan Quach

Arash,

Can you elaborate on your question? I don’t quite understand it.

Quan
on 23 Jul 2008 at 11:46 am 17Arash

Quan,
I want know is it any way to capture (x,y) of graph after plotting it,
I mean after plotting a graph, I want to be able to click on graph and see dot’s on graph at my every (x,y), for exmple if I am plotting x=y, after plotting I want to be able to clicking on graph and then I get dots on graph at (1,1) (2,2)(-1,-1) and ….

I am not sure if there be anyawy to doing this?(I am really newcomber in Matlab GUI)

I appreciate your help.

Thank you,
Arash
on 23 Jul 2008 at 1:24 pm 18Quan Quach

Hi Arash,

Use the data cursor icon to do this. See the last picture in this tutorial. The icon inside the right of the red box is the one you want to use. Click on this and then click on the curve.

Quan
on 24 Jul 2008 at 9:22 am 19Arash

Hi Quan,
Thank you, I didn’t get chance to try yet, I will let you know.
appreciate your help.

Thank you,
Arash
on 30 Jul 2008 at 7:55 am 20Arash

Hi,
Thank you, it really helped, but is it any way to get coordination with out using tool bar, I mean is it any way to write function to do that, having more control on tool bar, for instance if we have to plot, so we have control some how to check coordination of either one at a time and cursar be regular cursar for other one?

Thank you,
Arash
on 30 Jul 2008 at 8:10 am 21Arash

Hi,
to give more, I am really new in Matlab but when I was reading tutorial for Radio Buttons, Toggle Buttons, and Button Group Panel I thought may be I can with
set(handles.fontSelect_buttongroup,’SelectionChangeFcn’,@fontSelect_buttongroup_SelectionChangeFcn);

Create a function for getting coordination and then put push button for my plot so when I click that button or checkbox my cursar goes to getting coordination mode and get that instead of using toolbar.

and I can put 2 different checkbox or button for 2 different plot in my program .

Thank you,
Arash
on 30 Jul 2008 at 1:16 pm 22Paul D

Arash, a way to get the cursor position in your program without using the toolbar is as follows.

l=datacursormode;
lData=get(l,’DataCursors’);
pos=get(lData,’Position’);

you can also set the cursor position by doing the above in reverse with ’set’ commands. Test it out and you’ll see that it works pretty well.

Paul
on 30 Jul 2008 at 1:20 pm 23Paul D

Or even

l=datacursormode;
pos=get(l.DataCursors,’Position’);
on 30 Jul 2008 at 3:56 pm 24Arash

Hi paul,
I creat 2 button for my 2 figure and put the code you gave me at call_back event of those but I get error.
basically my goal is to control cursor some how when I click the button for that plot when I move my mouse on figure I get coordination of that point, just like a time I use toolbar.
Arash
on 31 Jul 2008 at 6:56 am 25Paul D

i’m not sure exactly at what you are trying to accomplish. Here is a little go through that you can just copy and paste into matlabs command prompt that will show the capabilities that I am discussing.

x=[0:.1:10];
y=x^2+2*x;
graph=plot(x,y);
l=datacursormode(graph);

NOW goto the figure that just popped up and put a cursor position on the graph.
NOW go back to the command prompt and type

pos=get(l.DataCursors,’Position’)

you will see that the variable pos holds the coordinates of the cursor.

I do believe that this is the capability that you requested. This should be enough information to help you do whatever you want to do w/ captureing the coordinates of a cursor.
on 10 Aug 2008 at 3:50 pm 26Ashutosh Bhardwaj

Helped me a LOT with GUI programming. you guys should come out with a book !!
on 19 Aug 2008 at 1:57 am 27Nr

Thank you very much for this tutorial!!!
Matlab’s help files are very confusing for me every time.
These tutorials are very helpful.
on 29 Aug 2008 at 3:03 pm 28Roman

Hi Quan Quach, do you have a tutorial about writing a GUI that allows signals, lets say, from a signal generator through serial port, to be displayed on the gui?
Thanks
on 29 Aug 2008 at 9:53 pm 29Quan Quach

Hi Roman,

I haven’t dealt with data acquisition using MATLAB. So cannot help you there. Hopefully I will use it in the future and I can write a tutorial on it!

Quan
on 24 Sep 2008 at 5:19 am 30DEVANAND

Hello Quan,
What a nice work this site is.I am an M-beginner.
I have a doubt.

I have a GUIDE application. Now I wanted to uncheck and check the checkboxes by clicking a pushbutton. How can it be done , plz help me.

THANKS IN ADVANCE
on 26 Sep 2008 at 2:28 pm 31sathya

Devanand,
In the pushbutton callback, use
set(handles.checkbox,’Value’,1)
to check the checkbox
and set(handles.checkbox,’Value’,0)
to uncheck it.
on 26 Sep 2008 at 2:34 pm 32Quan Quach

Devanand,

Sathya seems to hae beaten me to the punch. Thanks Sathya!

Quan
on 26 Sep 2008 at 2:37 pm 33sathya

Thanks to you Quan.
For the past six months I have been working on MATLAB and your tutorials have helped me a lot.
on 26 Sep 2008 at 2:39 pm 34Quan Quach

Glad you found our site helpful!

Quan
on 29 Sep 2008 at 6:29 pm 35Liam

Fantastic tutorial. I was amazed that I could get a small project working right off the bat based on this. However, I have 2 questions:
1. Suppose I have two sliders and want to plot a point on the axes based on the values of the sliders. Which callback function should do the plotting? What’s the best way to approach this?
2. Is there any way to turn off the automatic resizing of the axes? I want the axes to stay fixed regardless of the data being plotted.

Thanks very much!

Liam
on 29 Sep 2008 at 8:51 pm 36Quan Quach

Hi Liam,

Glad you found these tutorials helpful.

for question 2:
If you know what your x and y limits will be, you can do the following:
```
axis([xmin xmax ymin ymax])
```
For question 1:

You would want to put your plotting code in the callback for the slider widget. Every time the slider value is changed, the callback is activated. Note that the slider callback is only activated each time you click the mouse.

Good luck!
on 29 Sep 2008 at 9:09 pm 37Liam

Thanks, Quan.

Ideally, I’d like the axes to update if any of the sliders are modified. Right now it only updates if the slider within which the plot code is written is clicked on. Is there some sort of refresh plot command?

One more question, how do you retrieve the layout window of a GUI after closing it? If I try reopening the .fig file, the GUI opens in a mode in which it can’t be modified. Thanks very much!

Liam
on 29 Sep 2008 at 9:12 pm 38Quan Quach

Hi Liam,

I would write a separate plot function, and then call this plot function within both of your slider callbacks.

For your second question, you want to open it using GUIDE.

At the MATLAB command prompt, type in ‘guide’, and then open an existing project.

Quan
on 06 Oct 2008 at 3:56 pm 39Jesse

Quan, et al,
I have 3 separate graphs I am trying to display in my GUI window with the use of radio buttons. I have generated and axes box called Graph and initialized it with the a jpeg
```
 
% Iniitalize jpg in axes Graph at start up --
 case 'initialize' 
        axes(handles.Graph);
        picture1 = imread('Pics\Graphs.jpg');
        image(picture1);
        axis off;
```
When the GUI appears the user enters data that is read in to do some calculations. I have written stand alone code that plots all three graphs (errorbar, bar, X&Y). My main issue I am having is how to separately save those plots or get them displayed when selecting a radio button. With stand alone code I can get all three plots saved as jpegs, but is there a way to just have them displayed directly into axes named Graph. I have some how accidentally done it with the first plot and it looks much cleaner than loading a jpeg (which is what I am doing now). Here is an example of my stand alone plot code. By the way I am using switch and case to interface with the radio puttons. Atlas is my gui code created by guide and guiengine is my function where most of my actual code is located and passed into atlas
```
 
% -- Plot of Mean with Error bars ---
results_in = xlsread('User Output.xls');
ListStr = results_in(1:k,1);
x_axis = ListStr;
y_axis = results_in(1:k,2);
error = results_in(1:k,3);
 
errorbar(x_axis,y_axis,error,'sr',...
    'LineWidth',0,...
    'MarkerEdgeColor','k',...
    'MarkerFaceColor',[.49 1 .63],...
    'MarkerSize',8)
 
axis([0 1000 0 1])
title 'Percent Enemy Killed by Case Number'
xlabel('Case Number');
ylabel('Percent Enenmy Killed');
grid on
 
print -f1 -djpeg 'Pics\Mean.jpg'
close figure 1;
 
% Code in guiengine to display Mean Graph --
case 'mean'
        axes(handles.Graph);
        mean = imread('Pics\Mean.jpg');
        image(mean);
        axis off;
 
%Radio Button function to display Mean Graph
% --- Executes on button press in EnemyKilled.
function EnemyKilled_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
get (handles.atlas, 'userdata');
[handles] = guiengine(handles,'mean');
```
Hopefully this isn’t too much to take in. If there is a better way to utilize the Radio Buttons to execute the code I am all for it. I would rather not have a jpeg displayed since its gets severely distorted. Thanks in advance.

Jesse

on 06 Oct 2008 at 4:41 pm 40Jesse

Well I was wondering why there wasn’t more to the tutorial and then after I sent my message I noticed there was a second page (oops). That got me to accomplish what I wanted above, but I am getting this error in the command window:

 
Undefined function or variable 'hObject'.
 
Error in ==&gt; guiengine at 109
        guidata(hObject, handles);
 
Error in ==&gt; DST_ATLAS&gt;HeloFlights_Callback at 953
[handles] = guiengine(handles,'num_flight');
 
Error in ==&gt; gui_mainfcn at 96
        feval(varargin{:});
 
Error in ==&gt; DST_ATLAS at 42
    gui_mainfcn(gui_State, varargin{:});
 
Error in ==&gt;
guidemfile&gt;@(hObject,eventdata)DST_ATLAS('HeloFlights_Callback',hObject,eventdata,guidata(hObject))
 
 
??? Error while evaluating uicontrol Callback

Thanks
Jesse

on 06 Oct 2008 at 6:26 pm 41Quan Quach

Hi Jesse,

So lets say you have 3 radio buttons. I’m going to assume you know how to use radio buttons, but if not, take a look here (go to page 3 of this tutorial): http://www.blinkdagger.com/matlab/matlab-gui-tutorial-buttons-button-group

First, set up your buttons into the button panel accordingly.

%set the selection function in the opening function of your GUI
set(handles.plotSelect_buttongroup,'SelectionChangeFcn',@plotSelect_buttongroup_SelectionChangeFcn);

Next, put this code into your button group call back

function plotSelect_buttongroup_SelectionChangeFcn(hObject, eventdata)
 
%retrieve GUI data, i.e. the handles structure
handles = guidata(hObject); 
 
axes(handles.Graph) %set the axes to where the data will be plotted
 
switch get(eventdata.NewValue,'Tag')   % Get Tag of selected object
    case 'plot1_radiobutton'
      %execute this code when plot1_radiobutton is selected
      %put the code that plots your data here
 
    case 'plot2_radiobutton'
      %execute this code when plot2_radiobutton is selected
      %put the code that plots your data here
 
    case 'plot3_radiobutton'
      %execute this code when plot3_radiobutton is selected  
      %put the code that plots your data here
    otherwise
       % Code for when there is no match.
 
end
%updates the handles structure
guidata(hObject, handles);

Hope that helps,

Quan

Include MATLAB code in your comment by doing the following:

<pre lang="MATLAB">

%insert code here

</pre>

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