Having a .mat file store an image to call to a tab in app designer

Hello, any help is appreciated. A litle background. I am trying to make a GUI that uses a scenario file in the form of a .mat, that has a bunch of info that gets pulled into different places withing the app designer. I was asked to see if we could put an image into the .mat file and call it on a seperate tab. This image is to reflect the scenario as a reference. (disclaimer I am still new to MALAB)

I have used this code here to get the image into the .mat:

new_image = imread(' insert_location'); 
% Add the image to the workspace as a new variable
new_image_variable = 'Schematic'; 
% Save the updated data to the .mat file
save('name.mat', 'new_image_variable', '-append'); 

This seems to have added the variable, but when I make a seperate tab I can not figure out how to load the image.

...this is for the button option in the component library

I have used this code here:

% Button pushed function: SpacecraftSchematicButton- this is generated by app designer and cant be changed
function SC_Schematic(app, event)

% In the tab where you want to use the variable
    function PrivateButtonPushedFcn(app, event)
        image_data = app.UserData.new_image_variable;
        img = uiimage(app.UIFigure);
        img.Position = [100 100 200 200]; % Set the position and size of the image
        img.ImageSource = image_data;
    end

... I have also tried this with the image option in the component library.

....and nothing happens. I had it before so that you could just select the image with the image component and manually update it, but the ask was to make it a little more automated. Ideally if I could just have the image pop up without having to push anythign that would be wonderful, just load the .mat file and then the image would load accoringly. Any

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

new_image_variable = 'Schematic'; 
% Save the updated data to the .mat file
save('name.mat', 'new_image_variable', '-append'); 

That stores new_image_variable in name.mat -- but new_image_variable is just a character vector, not the content of an image.

You do not appear to be storing new_image_variable into app.UserData.new_image_variable

You want something more like

save('name.mat', 'new_image_variable', 'new_image', '-append'); 

and later

image_data = load('name.mat', 'new_image').new_image;
img.ImageSource = image_data;

Notice that the actual image data is being stored in ImageSource.

uiimage() ImageSource can be either a file path or else it can be RGB data (support for grayscale is not documented.). If it is a file path then it must be the path to an image file. Using the file path to a .mat file is not a supported option.

Instead of storing the image data you could store the information about ' insert_location'