Recap of the hierarchy of each plot element: Difference between revisions

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Recap of the hierarchy of each plot element (view source)

Revision as of 15:53, 1 September 2015

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Fix various outdated or incorrect informations
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(Fix various outdated or incorrect informations)
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Octave aims at being compatible with Matlab as much as possible, so the graphics part is very similar too to Matlab. In Octave the first choice to make is the {{Codeline|graphics_toolkit()}}. Standard is the 'gnuplot' toolkit using the [http://www.gnuplot.info Gnuplot] software package . The second choice is [http://www.fltk.org 'fltk']. You might want to try to test both of them for your plotting aims to see which solves your problem. Some graphics problems (wrong font, missing sub/superscript, wrong line style, etc) relate specifically to one graphics_toolkit in Octave, so you might want to try the other one.
Octave aims at being compatible with Matlab as much as possible, so the graphics part is very similar too to Matlab. In Octave the first choice to make is the {{Codeline|graphics_toolkit ()}}. There are currently (sep. 2015) 3 available plotting back-ends (graphics toolkits):
* 'qt' (the default since Octave 4.0) and 'fltk' both rely on the same OpenGl based rendering engine.
* 'gnuplot' toolkit uses the [http://www.gnuplot.info Gnuplot] software package.
You might want to try to test all of them for your plotting aims to see which solves your problem. Some graphics problems (wrong font, missing sub/superscript, wrong line style, etc) relate specifically to one graphics_toolkit in Octave, so you might want to try the other one. In general OpenGl based toolkits are much faster than 'gnuplot'. On the other hand, as 'gnuplot' is more mature, the printed outputs (in raster or vector formats) are much more good looking and generally suitable for publication.  


After the choice of the {{Codeline|graphics_toolkit('gnuplot')}} or {{Codeline|graphics_toolkit('fltk')}}, there is the following hierarchy to address when make/adapting your plot:
A plot is composed of various objects (figure window, axes, lines, images ...) which all feature a set of useful properties as we will see below. The graphics objects are organized according to the following hierarchy:


* root  (any hierarchy needs to start somewhere)
* root: the base object. Mainly features properties related to screen description.  
* {{Codeline|gcf ()}} (the handle to your figure: one for every figure)
* figure: represents a figure windows. Figures are children of the root object.
* {{Codeline|gca ()}} (the handle to the axes inside a particular figure (several if you have subplots)
* axes: represents a set of x, y (,z) axes. Axes are children of figure objects.
* {{Codeline|<nowiki>p = plot (x, y)</nowiki>}} (p is the handle (inside the current axes handle) to the data, data symbols, data line thickness, etc)
* line: represents curves. Lines are children of axes (or hggroup, see below) objects. This is typically what is used by the basic {{Codeline|plot (...)}} function to draw curves.
* {{Codeline|<nowiki>t = text (xlocation, ylocation, "some text")</nowiki>}} (t is the handle to the text and is a child of the current axes handle, like p)
* patch: represents unstructured surface. Patches are children of axes (or hggroup, see below) objects. Patches are used when one wants to draw 2 dimensional unstructured surfaces and have fine control over their color.
* {{Codeline|<nowiki>pp = patch ([x1 x2 x3 x4], [y1 y2 y3 y4], "r")</nowiki>}} (pp is the handle to a red patch using the coordinates inside the current axes handle)
* image: represents a 2D set of pixels. Images are children of axes (or hggroup, see below) objects.
* surface: represents structured surfaces. Surfaces are children of axes (or hggroup, see below) objects. Structured meshes made of quads are generally represented using surfaces.
* text: represents a text label. Texts are children of axes (or hggroup, see below) objects.
* hggroup: convenience object to group graphics objects. Among others useful properties, the 'visible' property of and hggroup acts on the visibility of all its children objects (line, text, ...)


Let's do an example:
The law level functions that are used to create the above objects have the same name as the object. They all return a unique handle (a variable of type double) that can be further used to change the object properties using {{Codeline|set (h, POPERTY, VALUE)}}.
 
 
In general one would use higher level function such as in the example below::
{{Code||<syntaxhighlight lang="octave" style="font-size:13px">
{{Code||<syntaxhighlight lang="octave" style="font-size:13px">
  graphics_toolkit ("gnuplot");
  graphics_toolkit ("qt");
  x = 0:0.1:3;
  x = 0:0.1:3;
  y = sin (x);
  y = sin (x);
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  q = plot (x, x.^2, "k");
  q = plot (x, x.^2, "k");


* You now have 2 windows that popped up on your screen: figure 1 and figure 2.
* You now have 2 windows that popped up on your screen: figure 1 and figure 2. Their handle is the integer figure number (1 and 2 here)
* figure 2 has two axes objects inside: a {{Codeline|<nowiki>y = sin (x) .^2</nowiki>}} and a {{Codeline|<nowiki>y = x.^2</nowiki>}}.
* figure 2 has two axes objects inside. In order to have access to those axes properties one could have stored its handle, returned by the subplot function, e.g. {{Codeline|<nowiki>hax = subplot (2,1,1)</nowiki>}}
* the actual data and data-plot-properties are inside the handles {{Codeline|p}} and {{Codeline|r}}.
* the actual curves {{Codeline|<nowiki>y = sin (x) .^2</nowiki>}} and {{Codeline|<nowiki>y = x.^2</nowiki>}} are line objects that can be tuned using their repsective handles {{Codeline|p}} and {{Codeline|r}}.
 
So let's say you want to change the line thickness of the data in the first figure:


So let's say you want to change the line thickness of the curve in figure 1:
  figure (1)
  figure (1)
  set (p, "linewidth", 3)
  set (p, "linewidth", 3)
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Which will give you the RGB code for black (0,0,0) and green (0,1,0).
Which will give you the RGB code for black (0,0,0) and green (0,1,0).


Have a look at all the things you can change with:
Have a look at all the properties of line objects:
  get (q)
  get (q)
Some of those properties are read-only, while others have a limited set of allowed values. You may also want to look at modifiable properties and their allowed values:
set (q)


And {{Codeline|set}} anything that is not to your taste to something else (for what's available see the [http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/ manual]).
And {{Codeline|set}} anything that is not to your taste to something else (for what's available see the [http://www.gnu.org/software/octave/doc/interpreter/ manual]).
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Adding {{Codeline|text()}} inside an {{Codeline|axes()}} object is done by
Adding {{Codeline|text()}} inside an {{Codeline|axes()}} object is done by
  text (2, 0.8, "HERE");
  text (2, 0.8, "HERE");
... but it now is inserted in figure1, which ''might NOT be want you anticipated''.
... but it now is inserted in figure 1, which ''might NOT be what you anticipated''.
   
   
The {{Codeline|text()}} command does ''not'' have the option to tell it in which figure or axes object to write the text.
All low and high level plotting functions draw by default on the 'currentfigure' in the 'currentaxes' for which the handles can be retrieved using:
Make sure you have moved to current figure and axes ''before'' calling {{Codeline|text()}} to insert text:
hfig = gcf (); # returns a handle to the current figure
  figure (2) % the following command will operate on figure(2)
hax = gca ();  # returns a handle to the current axes
  get (gcf (),"children") % which two axes objects are there inside the current figure ?
 
  set (gcf (), "currentaxes", (get (gcf (), "children"))(2)) % chose the second set of axes
In order to change the current figure/axes and draw in figure 2 you may either make them current using the the figure {{Codeline|figure (NFIG)}} function:  
  figure (2) # figure 2 is now the current, let's check
get (0, "currentfigure")
  haxes = get (gcf (),"children") # retrieve all axes handles
  set (gcf (), "currentaxes", haxes(2)) # set the second axes current
  text (1.0, 0.5, "THIS IS WHAT I WANTED")
  text (1.0, 0.5, "THIS IS WHAT I WANTED")


... or explicitly specify the parent object in which you would like to draw the text:
haxes = get (2, "children") # retrieve all axes handles
text (1.0, 0.5, "THIS IS WHAT I WANTED", "parent", haxes (2))
[[Category:Plotting tutorials]]
[[Category:Plotting tutorials]]
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