How to plot to two figures simultaneously?

Here's the idea:

I'm making a live script to be printed and submitted for uni. At one point, I have to plot like 20 figures. It is more convenient to plot all these on a 4x5 subplot to be quickly looked over for mistakes etc., but this isn't good for detail. I was hoping to then simultaneously plot to an invisible figure (say fig(m,"...") in a for loop m=1:20), while also plotting to this subplot, and then printing the resultant figures to (hopefully one multi-page) pdf documents. I'd then attach this to my assignment for further scrutiny.

But nothing seems to do this, and everything I search is saturated with subplot faqs.

Is this reasonable or no? I get atm I could just duplicate the code, but that kinda destroys the whole idea of simultanous coding as it will get really messy, and get quite slow, very quickly.

[Michael Soskind]

Hi Hugh,

Seemingly, you would like to plot to two figures, is there a reason you have not tried to do the following?

for m = 1:20                            % Going through all 20 plots as above
        for i = 1:2
            figure(i); hold on;         % Selecting which figure to plot to
            if i == 1
                subplot(4,5,m);         % subplot as described above          
            end
            % plot commands that you are using
        end
end

Answer 1

[Adam Danz]

Create the subplots and then copy each subplot axes to an independent figure at full size.

Here's a demo.

% Create subplot
figure()
sp(1) = subplot(2,2,1); 
plot(rand(20,2), '-o')
sp(2) = subplot(2,2,2); 
surf(peaks(15))
sp(3) = subplot(2,2,3); 
[X,Y] = meshgrid(linspace(-2*pi,2*pi),linspace(0,4*pi));
contour(X,Y,sin(X)+cos(Y))
sp(4) = subplot(2,2,4); 
histogram(randn(1,100)+10);

% copy each subplot to an independent figure
for i = 1:numel(sp)
    newfig = figure(); 
    axCopy = copyobj(sp(i),newfig);
    axCopy.Position = [0.13 0.11 0.775 0.815];  % default fig pos.
end

[Hugh Wheaton]

Damn I was just about to get there myself! Cheers anyway. Learning the graphics of matlab's been difficult so far, I can't quite figure what objects are actually being saved etc. (Like what an axis actually is for instance, if you can make an array of handles etc.).

[Adam Danz]

"I can't quite figure what objects are actually being saved "

If you plot a line using

plot(x,y)

The line object appears on the axes and it is 'saved' there. You can access the handle by using findobj or findall or other methods. But to save the handle,

h = plot(x,y); 

If x and y are matrices, there will be a handle for each column. You can also create a handle array by,

h(1) = plot(1:5, 1:5)
h(2) = plot(5:10, 5:10); 

An axis is the object created by

h = axes(); 
% or
h = uiaxes(); 
% or 
h = polaraxes()
% and more...

[Hugh Wheaton]

Nah I meant more in the sense of what data structure a handle is, and when an array or structure is necessary etc.

[Hugh Wheaton]

how to I do this to maintain the same titles? I can't copy the axis to the subplot as that is, itself, an axis, so I don't really know what to do...

[Adam Danz]

To investigate a handle, you can determine what the handle is:

class(h) % h is the handle.

or just print h in the command window and the first line shows what the handle is (ie, "Line").

Then you can look up "Line properties" in the documentation which defines each property.

If you give titles to each subplot in my example, you'll see that the titles are copied to the figures. "I can't copy the axis to the subplot " -- my example copies an axes to a figure. Are you doing the opposite -- copying an axes to a subplot? If so, there are two ways to do that.