How to rotate a rectangle

Hello!

I am working on modeling a dynamic suspension system and I am trying to create an animation for it. I have the translation components completed and working fine but I need to rotate a rectangle and for some reason it is not working.

I used the below code to create the rectangle and rotate it 45 degrees about the z axis:

rotate(rectangle('Position',[x_left,xc-height/2+2*mass_height_diff,w_chassis+1,height],'EdgeColor','black'),[0 0 1],45)

However, running the code shows the rectangle moving up and down as it should but not rotating at all. Does anyone know what the issue is here? Thank you!

Answer 1

[darova]

If you open (Ctrl+D) rotate function you will find these lines at the end:

if strcmp(t,'surface') || strcmp(t,'line')
      set(h(i),'xdata',newx,'ydata',newy,'zdata',newz);
    elseif strcmp(t,'patch')
      set(h(i),'Vertices',[newx,newy,newz]); 
    elseif strcmp(t,'text')
      set(h(i),'position',[newx newy newz])
    elseif strcmp(t,'image')
      set(h(i),'xdata',newx,'ydata',newy)
    end

When you draw a rectangle

h = rectangle('Position',[x_left,xc-height/2+2*mass_height_diff,w_chassis+1,height],'EdgeColor','red');
get(h,'type')
ans =
rectangle

As you can see there is no case for rectangle. Maybe that is way rotate didn't work

So i used simple plot

x_left = 3;
xc = 1;
height = 2;
mass_height_diff = 5;
w_chassis = 1;
height = 5;

x = [x_left
    w_chassis+1];
y = [xc-height/2+2*mass_height_diff
    height];
h = plot([x(1) x(2) x(2) x(1) x(1)],...
    [y(1) y(1) y(2) y(2) y(1)]);
rotate(h,[0 0 1],45)

[Nathan Batta]

The issue is that I am creating an animation so the variable xc is changing with time and the figure is rewriting over itself. When I do it this way for some reason it gives me the following error:

Error using rotate (line 29)
H must contain axes children only.

Error in Model_Sim (line 36)
rotate(h,[0 0 1],45);

[darova]

I see some difference. Coincidence?

[Nathan Batta]

I'm not sure why it is saying that but I definitely have them both named h.

[darova]

What happens if you try

h = plot([x(1) x(2) x(2) x(1) x(1)],...
    [y(1) y(1) y(2) y(2) y(1)]);
h1 = get(h,'children');
rotate(h1,[0 0 1],45)

[darova]

Maybe rotate manually?

x = [x_left
    w_chassis+1];
y = [xc-height/2+2*mass_height_diff
    height];
x = x([1 2 2 1 1]);
y = y([1 1 2 2 1]);
a = 15;
R = [cosd(a) -sind(a);sind(a) cosd(a)];       % rotation matrix
v = R*[x(:)-mean(x) y(:)-mean(y)]'; % center and rotate rectangle
x = v(1,:)+mean(x);                 % restore original position
y = v(2,:)+mean(y);
plot(x,y,'k');

EDITED: rotation matrix

Answer 2

[Nathan Batta]

Update:

I was able to get it to work using the following code:

g=hgtransform;
r=rectangle('Parent',g,'Position',[x_left,xc+2*mass_height_diff,w_chassis+1,height],'EdgeColor','black','LineWidth',.75);
g.Matrix=makehgtform('zrotate',theta);

However, is there a way to get it to rotate about the center of the rectangle? Right now it is rotating about the bottom left corner I believe. Thank you!

Answer 3

[cui,xingxing]

I recommend you to use 'polyshape' for rotating rectangles, there are many object functions that can meet your requirements.

rotate a rectangle example @Nathan Batta