CODEWITHSUNDEEP
matlabmatlab-figure
Gnubie
Gnubie

Reputation: 2607

Renumber MATLAB figure without saving and opening .fig file

In MATLAB R2011b, I have a script which explicitly specifies a figure number (say, Figure 1) and plots on it. I wish to keep this plot open and run the script again with different parameters, so that I can visually compare the new and previous plots.

How can I rename the previous figure (to, say, Figure 2) so that the new plot does not overwrite it, and thus allowing both plots to be visible, without

from both

  1. The command line, and
  2. using the figure's GUI?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 2043

Answers (4)

Gnubie
Gnubie

Reputation: 2607

Just spoke with a Mathworks employee and was told that a better solution is to set the 'HandleVisibility' parameter of the figure to 'off' to protect it. For example, to keep figures 1 and 2, do

 set(1:2, 'HandleVisibility', 'off')

MATLAB will then map any reference to these figures to new figures, so that the originals (including tool settings) remain untouched.

Though this doesn't exactly answer the question, it achieves what I wanted to do.

Upvotes: 1

Gnubie
Gnubie

Reputation: 2607

Based on H.Muster's answer, I wrote this function to clone a figure:

%% Clone a figure
%  clone_figure()     - Clone the current figure to a new figure
%  clone_figure(N)    - Clone the current figure to figure N
%  clone_figure(0, M) - Clone figure M to a new figure
%  clone_figure(N, M) - Clone figure M to a figure N
function clone_figure(new_index, old_index)
    % Get handle of original figure
    if (exist('old_index', 'var'))
        if (not(ishandle(old_index)))
            error('myApp:argChk', ['Figure ',num2str(old_index),' undefined']);
        end
        figure(old_index);
    end
    old_handle = gcf;
    % Get handle of clone
    if (exist('new_index', 'var') && new_index)
        if (new_index < 0)
            error('myApp:argChk', ['Index ',num2str(new_index),' invalid']);
        end
        figure(new_index);
    else
        figure;
    end
    new_handle = gcf;
    % Copy figure's contents and properties
    copyobj(get(old_handle, 'Children'), new_handle);
    copyobj(get(old_handle, 'CurrentAxes'), new_handle);
    set(new_handle, 'Alphamap', get(old_handle, 'Alphamap'));
    set(new_handle, 'CloseRequestFcn', get(old_handle, 'CloseRequestFcn'));
    set(new_handle, 'Color', get(old_handle, 'Color'));
    set(new_handle, 'Colormap', get(old_handle, 'Colormap'));
    set(new_handle, 'CurrentPoint', get(old_handle, 'CurrentPoint'));
    set(new_handle, 'DockControls', get(old_handle, 'DockControls'));
    set(new_handle, 'FileName', get(old_handle, 'FileName'));
    set(new_handle, 'IntegerHandle', get(old_handle, 'IntegerHandle'));
    set(new_handle, 'InvertHardcopy', get(old_handle, 'InvertHardcopy'));
    set(new_handle, 'KeyPressFcn', get(old_handle, 'KeyPressFcn'));
    set(new_handle, 'KeyReleaseFcn', get(old_handle, 'KeyReleaseFcn'));
    set(new_handle, 'MenuBar', get(old_handle, 'MenuBar'));
    set(new_handle, 'Name', get(old_handle, 'Name'));
    set(new_handle, 'NextPlot', get(old_handle, 'NextPlot'));
    set(new_handle, 'NumberTitle', get(old_handle, 'NumberTitle'));
    set(new_handle, 'PaperUnits', get(old_handle, 'PaperUnits'));
    set(new_handle, 'PaperOrientation', get(old_handle, 'PaperOrientation'));
    set(new_handle, 'PaperPosition', get(old_handle, 'PaperPosition'));
    set(new_handle, 'PaperPositionMode', get(old_handle, 'PaperPositionMode'));
    set(new_handle, 'PaperSize', get(old_handle, 'PaperSize'));
    set(new_handle, 'PaperType', get(old_handle, 'PaperType'));
    set(new_handle, 'Pointer', get(old_handle, 'Pointer'));
    set(new_handle, 'PointerShapeCData', get(old_handle, 'PointerShapeCData'));
    set(new_handle, 'PointerShapeHotSpot', get(old_handle, 'PointerShapeHotSpot'));
    set(new_handle, 'Position', get(old_handle, 'Position'));
    set(new_handle, 'Renderer', get(old_handle, 'Renderer'));
    set(new_handle, 'RendererMode', get(old_handle, 'RendererMode'));
    set(new_handle, 'Resize', get(old_handle, 'Resize'));
    set(new_handle, 'ResizeFcn', get(old_handle, 'ResizeFcn'));
    set(new_handle, 'SelectionType', get(old_handle, 'SelectionType'));
    set(new_handle, 'ToolBar', get(old_handle, 'ToolBar'));
    set(new_handle, 'Units', get(old_handle, 'Units'));
    set(new_handle, 'WindowButtonDownFcn', get(old_handle, 'WindowButtonDownFcn'));
    set(new_handle, 'WindowButtonMotionFcn', get(old_handle, 'WindowButtonMotionFcn'));
    set(new_handle, 'WindowButtonUpFcn', get(old_handle, 'WindowButtonUpFcn'));
    set(new_handle, 'WindowKeyPressFcn', get(old_handle, 'WindowKeyPressFcn'));
    set(new_handle, 'WindowKeyReleaseFcn', get(old_handle, 'WindowKeyReleaseFcn'));
    set(new_handle, 'WindowScrollWheelFcn', get(old_handle, 'WindowScrollWheelFcn'));
    set(new_handle, 'WindowStyle', get(old_handle, 'WindowStyle'));
    set(new_handle, 'WVisual', get(old_handle, 'WVisual'));
    set(new_handle, 'WVisualMode', get(old_handle, 'WVisualMode'));
    set(new_handle, 'ButtonDownFcn', get(old_handle, 'ButtonDownFcn'));
    set(new_handle, 'Clipping', get(old_handle, 'Clipping'));
    set(new_handle, 'CreateFcn', get(old_handle, 'CreateFcn'));
    set(new_handle, 'DeleteFcn', get(old_handle, 'DeleteFcn'));
    set(new_handle, 'BusyAction', get(old_handle, 'BusyAction'));
    set(new_handle, 'HandleVisibility', get(old_handle, 'HandleVisibility'));
    set(new_handle, 'HitTest', get(old_handle, 'HitTest'));
    set(new_handle, 'Interruptible', get(old_handle, 'Interruptible'));
    set(new_handle, 'Parent', get(old_handle, 'Parent'));
    set(new_handle, 'Selected', get(old_handle, 'Selected'));
    set(new_handle, 'SelectionHighlight', get(old_handle, 'SelectionHighlight'));
    set(new_handle, 'Tag', get(old_handle, 'Tag'));
    set(new_handle, 'UIContextMenu', get(old_handle, 'UIContextMenu'));
    set(new_handle, 'UserData', get(old_handle, 'UserData'));
    set(new_handle, 'Visible', get(old_handle, 'Visible'));
    % from get(gcf) but skip CurrentCharacter, CurrentObject, BeingDeleted, Type
end

Upvotes: 2

H.Muster
H.Muster

Reputation: 9317

You can use getobj to copy the contents of one figure to another:

% get handle of the old figure
oldFigHandle = gcf;

% create new figure 
newFigHandle = figure+1;

% copy the contents from one figure the other
copyobj(get(oldFigHandle , 'children'), newFigHandle);

Other properties can be copied using the set and get commands:

set(newFigHandle, 'color', get(oldFigHandle , 'color'));

Upvotes: 3

Dan
Dan

Reputation: 45741

http://www.weizmann.ac.il/matlab/techdoc/ref/figure.html

You can just save a handle to the current figure

h = [];
for i = 1:NumGraphs
    h(i) = gcf;
    figure;

    %Your code to create the next graph here
end

Then to get back a specific graph:

figure(h(i));

Upvotes: 0

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