MATLAB Figures and Related Commands

Graphics created in MATLAB are figure objects. There are several generic commands used to manipulate figures regardless of how they were created.

Figure

To create a new figure window, try:

% Automatically named sequentially.
figure;

% Specifically named.
figure(Title="foo");

Hold

Use hold on to accumulate plots into the same graphic. This is then disabled by hold off.

View

To adjust the camera used to render a figure, try:

view([45 30]);

The arguments are azimuth and elevation angles, respectively.

Labels

For a 3D figure, try:

xlabel('x');
ylabel('y');
zlabel('z');

zlabel is not appropriate for a 2D figure.

Axis

By default, MATLAB tries to show figures with a smart scaling. Use axis equal to force axes to be equally scaled.

Title

title("Figure Title");

Legend

plot(spectra)
legend(starnames)

Plots in a figure are strictly ordered by insertion. The legend must use the same order.

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