Graphics

Animation

You can create animated sequences with MATLAB in two different ways:

• Save a number of different pictures and then play them back as a movie.
• Continually erase and then redraw the objects on the screen, making incremental changes with each redraw.

Movies are better suited to situations where each frame is fairly complex and cannot be redrawn rapidly. You create each movie frame in advance so the original drawing time is not important during playback, which is just a matter of blitting the frame to the screen. A movie is not rendered in real time; it is simply a playback of previously rendered frames.

The second technique, drawing, erasing, and then redrawing, makes use of different drawing modes supported by MATLAB. These modes allow faster redrawing at the expense of some rendering accuracy, so you must consider which mode to select.

This section provides an example of each technique. To see more sophisticated demonstrations of these features, type demo at the MATLAB prompt and explore the animation demonstrations.

Interactive Plotting

Movies

© 1994-2005 The MathWorks, Inc.