Tutorial for v1.4

To create a beautiful figure using PlotPub, all you need to know is how to use the set-plot-properties (setPlotProp) function. It has the following syntax:

function h = setPlotProp(opt, hfig)

where, opt is the options structure that controls the figure properties and hfig is figure handle.

Let us walk you through an example. Assume that we have data for 3 cycle of a 50 Hz AC voltage signal:

clear all;

%% lets plot 3 cycles of 50Hz AC voltage
f = 50;  % frequency
Vm = 10; % peak
phi = 0; % phase

% generate the signal
t = [0:0.0001:3/f];
th = 2*pi*f*t;
v = Vm*sin(th+phi);

% plot it
figure;
plot(t*1E3, v);

where, f is the frequency, Vm is the peak voltage, t is time and v is the AC voltage signal. Result? An utterly ugly looking figure punching at your face:

Now, let us add some spices. Let us set the labels:

% change settings
opt = [];
opt.XLabel = 'Time, t (ms)';   % xlabel
opt.YLabel = 'Voltage, V (V)'; % ylabel
opt.Title = 'Voltage as a function of time'; % title

If we want to save the plot in a file, we have to assign a file name:

% Save? comment the following line if you do not want to save
opt.FileName = 'plotSimple1.png';

Finally, call the setPlotProp function to apply the settings and export it:

% apply the settings
setPlotProp(opt);

The resulting plot should look like:

The full source code for this plot, plotSimple.m, can be found inside the examples folder.

We can change color, linewidth, linestyle etc:

opt.Colors = [0, 0, 0];   % [red, green, blue]
opt.LineWidth = 2;        % line width
opt.LineStyle = {'--'};   % line style: '-', ':', '--' etc

See plotLineStyle.m for full source code. We can also change scale, axis limit, tick and grid:

opt.YScale = 'log';     % 'linear' or 'log'
opt.YLim = [1E-3, 1E3]; % [min, max]
opt.YTick = [1E-3, 1E-1, 1E1, 1E3]; %[tick1, tick2, .. ]
opt.YGrid = 'on';       % 'on' or 'off'

or create a log-log plot:

opt.YScale = 'log';     % 'linear' or 'log'
opt.XScale = 'log';     % 'linear' or 'log'
opt.YLim = [1E-3, 1E3]; % [min, max]
opt.YTick = [1E-3, 1E-1, 1E1, 1E3]; %[tick1, tick2, .. ]
opt.YGrid = 'on';       % 'on' or 'off'
opt.XGrid = 'on';       % 'on' or 'off'

See plotSimpleLog.m and plotSimpleLogLog.m for full source code.

Creating multiple plots in a single set of axes is also easy:

% generate the signal
t = [0:0.0001:3/f];
th = 2*pi*f*t;
v1 = Vm*sin(th);
v2 = Vm*sin(th - phi);
v3 = Vm*sin(th - phi*2);

% plot them
figure;
plot(t*1E3, v1);
hold on;
plot(t*1E3, v2);
plot(t*1E3, v3);
hold off;

% change settings
opt = [];
opt.XLabel = 'Time, t (ms)';   % xlabel
opt.YLabel = 'Voltage, V (V)'; % ylabel
opt.YTick = [-10, 0, 10];      % [tick1, tick2, .. ]
opt.YLim = [-11, 11];          % [min, max]

% Save? comment the following line if you do not want to save
opt.FileName = 'plotMultiple.png';

% apply the settings
setPlotProp(opt);

result:

The full source is given in plotMultiple.m. We can change the linestyle, color etc and add a legend:

opt.XLim = [0, 80];            % [min, max]
opt.Colors = [                 % three colors for three data set
    1,      0,       0;        % data set 1
    0.25,   0.25,    0.25;     % data set 2
    0,      0,       1;        % data set 3
    ];
opt.LineWidth = [2, 2, 2];       % three line widths
opt.LineStyle = {'-', '-', '-'}; % three line styles
opt.Markers = {'o', '', 's'};
opt.MarkerSpacing = [15, 15, 15];
opt.Legend = {'\theta = 0^o', '\theta = 45^o', '\theta = 90^o'}; % legends

Here, opt.Colors(1,:), opt.LineWidth(1) and opt.LineStyle{1} set properties of data set 1 and so on. The full source is given in plotMarkers.m.

By default, plotPub creates figures with 6in x 2.5in box size. You can easily change the figure size using the following code.

opt.BoxDim = [7, 3]; %[width, height] in inches

This code creates a figure with 7in x 3in box.

See plotSize.m for more details.

You can also load a previously saved MATLAB fig file and export it using setPlotProp:

clear all;

% load previously generated fig file
figFile = 'single.fig';
open(figFile)

% change settings
opt.XLabel = 'Time, t (ms)'; % xlabel
opt.YLabel = 'Voltage, V (V)'; %ylabel
opt.BoxDim = [6, 5]; %[width, height]

% Save? comment the following line if you do not want to save
opt.FileName = 'plotSize.png';

% apply
setPlotProp(opt);