How to have a surf plot displayed in a GUI (not as an external figure).

I'm needing to have a surf plot displayed in the GUI I'm working on, not as an external figure. This is to display the various frequencies across time. This is the code I have at the moment.

[sabz,cFreq,timeInst] = spectrogramAnal(app.trace,app.Fs,app.baseline(1),app.baseline(2));
surf(app.UIAxes,timeInst, cFreq, sabz, 'EdgeColor', 'none');
axis xy;
axis tight;
colormap(jet); view(0,90);
caxis([0, 10]);
xlabel('Time (s)');
colorbar;
ylabel('Frequency (Hz)'); 

The spectrogramAnal function just sets up the data for the surf plot. My masters supervisor wrote the script for a surf plot to be done as an external figure but wants me to make it so that it will display the plot in the app itself. However, I can't seem to get it to work. Any ideas?

[Geoff Hayes]

Mark - what happens when you run the above code? Does the surf plot appear but outside of your GUI? If you are observing an error, please copy and paste the full error message to this question.

You have the line of code

surf(app.UIAxes,timeInst, cFreq, sabz, 'EdgeColor', 'none');

which suggests that you are using the correct syntax...but is app.UIAxes valid for your GUI?

[Mark Gauthier-Braham]

It doesn't give any error, it just brings up an empty graph outside of my GUI. The app.UIAxes works for the other two graphs I'm trying to do in the GUI, it's just not doing it with the surf plot (I'm using a Radio Button Group to allow the user to choose which graph is displayed within the GUI).

[Geoff Hayes]

What does the spectrogramAnal code do? Is that something that you have written and perhaps it is opening a figure?

[Mark Gauthier-Braham]

That function doesn't do any of the plotting or make a figure, I double checked and stepped it through just that function just to be sure. That just sets up the data for the surf plot partially using the spectrogram function (using the [s,f,t] = spectrogram(x,window,noverlap,f,fs) syntax), but doesn't actually plot anything. When I run just that function it only spits out the numbers from the spectrogram and a couple other numbers but doesn't put a figure together.

[Geoff Hayes]

Mark - you might want to add a breakpoint at the line

[sabz,cFreq,timeInst] = spectrogramAnal(app.trace,app.Fs,app.baseline(1),app.baseline(2));

and then run your app. When the debugger pauses at this line, use the debugging tools to step over this and each of the subsequent lines. Make a note of which line causes the figure to appear. Is it the surf code?

[Cris LaPierre]

What did the original plotting code look like? Could you share that code? It would be helpful to see everything from when spectrogramAnal is called to the surf command.

Have any changes been made to spectrogramAnal?

[Mark Gauthier-Braham]

It starts making the external figure right after it steps past the surf code.

No changes have been made to spectrogramAnal. The origional code was just:

[sabz,cFreq,timeInst] = spectrogramAnal(app.trace,app.Fs,app.baseline(1),app.baseline(2));
surf(timeInst, cFreq, sabz, 'EdgeColor', 'none');
axis xy;
axis tight;
colormap(jet); view(0,90);
caxis([0, 10]);
xlabel('Time (s)');
colorbar;
ylabel('Frequency (Hz)'); 

So, the only change I made was adding in the app.UIAxes part.

[Cris LaPierre]

And if you remove the app.UIAxes from you updated code, does the surf plot appear still correctly in an external figure window?

Answer 1

[Ameer Hamza]

You need to pass app.UIAxes to all the other functions too. Otherwise, they will also create a new figure window.

surf(app.UIAxes, timeInst, cFreq, sabz, 'EdgeColor', 'none');
axis(app.UIAxes, 'xy');
axis(app.UIAxes, 'tight');
colormap(app.UIAxes, jet); 
view(app.UIAxes, [0,90]);
caxis(app.UIAxes, [0, 10]);
xlabel(app.UIAxes, 'Time (s)');
ylabel(app.UIAxes, 'Frequency (Hz)'); 
colorbar(app.UIAxes);