lcolorbar

Color bar with text labels

Syntax

lcolorbar(labels)

lcolorbar(labels,Name,Value)

h = lcolorbar(___)

Description

lcolorbar(labels) displays a vertical color bar, with labels specified by the text in labels, to the right of the current axes.

lcolorbar(labels,Name,Value) specifies options for the color bar using name-value arguments.

h = lcolorbar(___) returns the color bar, using any combination of input arguments from the previous syntaxes.

Examples

Create Labeled Color Bar

Import elevation data for a region surrounding South Boulder Peak in Colorado. Calculate the viewshed for a sample point 1000 meters above the terrain.

[Z,R] = readgeoraster("n39_w106_3arc_v2.dt1","OutputType","double");
[vis,visR] = viewshed(Z,R,39.6,-105.6,1000);

Display the viewshed on a map, using green for visible areas and purple for obscured areas.

figure
usamap(vis,visR)
geoshow(vis,visR,"DisplayType","surface")
cmap = [0.4940 0.1840 0.5560; 0.4660 0.6740 0.1880];

Add a labeled color bar. Avoid truncating the text by moving the color bar to the left.

colormap(cmap)
h = lcolorbar(["Obscured" "Visible"]);
h.Position(1) = h.Position(1)-0.1;

Input Arguments

labels — Tick mark labels

cell array of character vectors | string array

Tick mark labels, specified as a cell array of character vectors or a string array. The number of elements in labels must match the length of the colormap.

Example: ["blue" "green" "yellow"]

Data Types: cell | char | string

Name-Value Arguments

Specify optional pairs of arguments as Name1=Value1,...,NameN=ValueN, where Name is the argument name and Value is the corresponding value. Name-value arguments must appear after other arguments, but the order of the pairs does not matter.

Example: lcolorbar(labels,Location="horizontal") displays a horizontal color bar below the axes.

Before R2021a, use commas to separate each name and value, and enclose Name in quotes.

Example: lcolorbar(labels,"Location","horizontal") displays a horizontal color bar below the axes.

Note

In addition to the name-value arguments in this section, you can use name-value arguments to specify values for the properties of the Axes object returned by this function. For more information about the properties of Axes objects, see Axes Properties.

Location — Location of color bar with respect to axes

"vertical" (default) | "horizontal"

Location of the color bar with respect to the axes, specified as one of these options:

• "vertical" — Display the color bar vertically and to the right of the axes.

• "horizontal" — Display the color bar horizontally and below the axes.

Data Types: char | string

TitleString — Title of color bar

character vector | string scalar

Title of the color bar, specified as a character vector or string scalar.

Data Types: char | string

XLabelString — x-label of color bar

character vector | string scalar

x-label of the color bar, specified as a character vector or string scalar.

Data Types: char | string

YLabelString — y-label of color bar

character vector | string scalar

y-label of the color bar, specified as a character vector or string scalar.

Data Types: char | string

ZLabelString — z-label of color bar

character vector | string scalar

z-label of the color bar, specified as a character vector or string scalar.

Data Types: char | string

ColorAlignment — Alignment of labels in color bar

"center" (default) | "ends"

Alignment of the labels in the color bar, specified as one of these options:

• "center" — Center the labels on the color bands.

• "ends" — Center the labels on the color breaks.

Data Types: char | string

Output Arguments

h — Output color bar

Axes object

Output color bar, returned as an Axes object.

Limitations

In some cases, such as when adding color bars to subplots or when changing the colormap of a specified axes, the lcolorbar function produces unexpected results. In these cases, create a labeled color bar by using the colorbar function instead of the lcolorbar function.

This code shows how to make a labeled color bar with 5 labels by using the colorbar function. Within the code:

• Create an axes object, change the colormap, and add a color bar

• Place a tick mark at the center of each color band

• Add the tick labels

ax = axes;
n = 5;
colormap(ax,jet(n))
cb = colorbar;

ticks = linspace(ax.CLim(1),ax.CLim(2),1 + 2*n);
ticks(1:2:end) = [];
cb.Ticks = ticks;

labels = ["apples","oranges","grapes","peaches","melons"];
cb.TickLabels = labels;

Version History

Introduced before R2006a