MATLAB Release Notes

Graphics and 3-D Visualization Features

If you are using the Help browser, view the Graphics new features video demo to see highlights of the new features.

The following sections introduce the new features and enhancements added in MATLAB 7.0.

• Plotting Tools
• Code Generation
• Data Exploration Tools
• Annotation Features
• Plot Objects
• Group Objects
• Linking Graphics Object Properties
• New Behavior for Hold Command
• Enhancements to findobj
• New Axes Properties
• New Figure Properties
• New Rootobject Property

Plotting Tools

If you are using the Help browser, watch the new Plotting Tools video demo for an overview of the major functionality.

The following list links to new or redesigned plotting tool features.

• Figure Toolbars -- figure toolbars that provide data exploration, plot editing, and annotation tools
• Interactive Plotting Tools -- overview of plotting tools
• Figure Palette
• Plot Browser
• Property Editor

Related functions:

• plottools
• figurepalette
• plotbrowser
• propertyeditor

Plotting Tools Not Working on Macintosh

The plotting tools not supported on the Macintosh platform. This means the Figure Palette, Plot Browser, and Property Editor do not work these platforms. To use the MATLAB 6 Property Editor, see the propedit command.

Using -nojvm Option Prevents Plotting Tools Use

If you use the -nojvm option when starting MATLAB, the plotting tools are not available.

MATLAB 6 Version Property Editor

The MATLAB 6 Property Editor is being replaced by a new Property Editor, which is available in this release. However, you can still access the MATLAB 6 Property Editor by issuing the following command.

• propedit(object_handle,'v6')
  

Without the v6 argument, propedit displays the new Property Editor. See the propedit function for more information. Note that the Property Editor might not work with all objects.

Code Generation

You can save a graph as an M-file that contains the code to regenerate the graph. See Generating an M-File to Recreate a Graph for more information.

Data Exploration Tools

The following list links to the documentation for the data exploration tools.

• Data Cursor -- displaying data values interactively
• Zooming -- 2-D and 3-D zoom tools
• Panning -- repositioning you view of the graph
• Rotate 3D -- interactive rotation of 3-D views
• Camera Toolbar -- mouse-controlled 3-D view manipulation.

Annotation Features

The following list links to the documentation for annotation features and properties of the annotation objects.

• Overview of annotation features
• Rectangles and ellipses
• Rectangle properties
• Ellipse properties
• Textbox annotations
• Textbox properties
• Lines and arrows
• Line properties
• Arrow properties
• Textarrow properties
• Doublearrow properties
• Adding a Colorbar to a graph -- new positioning options and colormap modification.

• colorbar -- new command options

• Adding a legend to a graph -- new positioning and appearance options

• legend -- new command options

• Pinning -- attaching annotation objects to a point in the figure
• Aligning and Distributing graphics objects

See the annotation function for information on programmatic access to annotation objects.

See Annotation Objects for an overview of this type of graphics object.

Plot Objects

Plot Objects are composite graphics objects that simplify the modification of graphs that employ them. The following list links to reference pages for modified graphing functions and to property descriptions of the new plot objects.

See Plot Objects for an overview of this type of graphics object.

Functions That Use Plot Objects

• area
• bar
• contour
• errorbar
• plot, plot3, loglog, semilogx, semilogy
• quiver, quiver3
• scatter, scatter3
• stairs
• stem, stem3
• surf, and mesh group

Note that all of the above functions have a 'v6' optional argument that causes each function to return the core graphics objects that were created in previous releases. See the reference pages for more information.

Plot Objects

• areaseries
• barseries
• contourgroup
• errorbarseries
• lineseries
• quivergroup
• scattergroup
• stairseries
• stemseries
• surfaceplot

Refreshing Data Source Properties

The refreshdata function enables you to take advantage of the XDataSource, YDataSource, and ZDataSource plot objects properties to update graph data when workspace variables change values.

See Specifying a Data Source for more information.

Group Objects

Group objects enable you treat a number of objects as one, with respect to certain properties.

See Group Objects for an overview of this type of graphics object.

Group Object Functions

• hggroup
• hgtransform
• makehgtform

Linking Graphics Object Properties

You can link the corresponding properties of graphics objects so that changing any one object's properties makes the same change to all the linked objects.

See linkprop and linkaxes for more information.

New Behavior for Hold Command

The hold command has a new option all. This option holds the plot and the current line color and line style so that subsequent graphing commands do not reset the ColorOrder or LineStyleOrder property values to the beginning to the list.

Enhancements to findobj

The findobj function now supports logical operators and regular expressions. See the findobj reference page for more information.

New Axes Properties

You can control the behavior of an axes within a resized figure using the following new axes properties.

• OuterPosition -- The boundary of the axes including the axis labels, title, and a margin. For figures with only one axes, this is the interior of the figure.
• ActivePositionProperty -- Specifies whether to use the OuterPosition or the Position property as the size to preserve when resizing the figure containing the axes.
• TightInset -- The margins added to the width and height of the Position property to include text labels, title, and axis labels.

See Automatic Axes Resize for more information.

New Figure Properties

There are three new figure properties described below.

Figure KeyPressFcn Property

The figure KeyPressFcn property now supports an event structure that returns information about the key press event. See the KeyPressFcn description for more information.

DockControls and WindowStyle Properties

Figures now have a DockControls property that determines if the Desktop menu appears on the figure. Setting dockable to on causes the menu to be displayed, the default setting of off prevents the menu from being displayed. You can always dock and undock the figure by setting the figure WindowStyle property.

Note that, depending on your preference settings, the figure might first be grouped into a Document window, which can then be docked in the Desktop.

See Docking Figures in the Desktop for more information.

New Rootobject Property

The MonitorPosition property enables you to get the postion (width, height, and location) of multiple monitors connected to your computer.

New Dialog for Exporting Figures

You can export MATLAB figures to a variety of standard file formats using the Export Setup dialog. To display the dialog, select Export Setup from the figure File menu.

Export Setup provides easy access to the graphics properties that affect exported figures. For example, it enables you to control the size of the figure, the font size and type, whether to use line styles or solid lines, and so on.

You can save your own export setting as an export style, or you can use predefined options optimized for PowerPoint and MSWord.

The following picture shows the major components of the Export Setup dialog.

Programming Features

External Interfaces/API Features

© 1994-2005 The MathWorks, Inc.