Graphics

Anatomy of a Graph

MATLAB^® plotting functions and tools direct their output to a window that is separate from the Command Window. In MATLAB this window is referred to as a figure. For example, the following picture illustrates a graph of the Bessel function, highlighting the basic components of the graph.

By default, MATLAB uses line style and color to distinguish the data sets plotted in the graph. However, you can change the appearance of these graphic components or add annotations to the graph to help explain your data for presentation.

Figure ToolBars

The figure's default toolbar provides shortcuts to commonly used features. The following picture shows the features available from this toolbar.

Note that you can enable two other toolbars from the View menu:

• Camera Toolbar -- Use for manipulating 3-D views. See View Control with the Camera Toolbar for more information.
• Plot Edit Toolbar -- Use for annotation and setting object properties. See Annotation Tools on the Plot Edit Toolbar for more information.

MATLAB Plotting Tools

Plotting Tools -- Interactive Plotting

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