Empty figure when trying to plot in a for loop

Hi all,

I was wondering why I am presented with an empty figure when trying to plot in a for loop. My x and y variables seem to be correct and are changing scalar values for every part of the for loop.

My code below is as follows:

clear, clear all, clc
vacuum_permittivity = 1; %Defines epsilon 0 value = 1
for num = 1:11 %Initialises for loop to the length of number_of_point
    number_of_point=11:4:51; %Initialises array of the number of points
    number_of_points=number_of_point(num); %Selects the part of the number of points array to use for the conditions below
    x_1 = -5; %Defines the minimum x axis value
    x_N = 5; %Defines the maximum x axis value
    x = transpose(linspace(x_1, x_N, number_of_points)); %Transposes x as a matrix with N number of points
    y = x; %Defines the x dimensions to be equal to the y dimensions
    h = x(2) - x(1); %Finds the 'h' value as the spacings between the points
    [X, Y] = meshgrid(x,y); %Initialises the meshgrid for the 
    electricpotential_analytic=(X.^2+Y.^2).*exp(-X.^2-Y.^2); %Defines the analytical electric potential
    sigma=exp(-X.^2-Y.^2).*(12*X.^2-4*X.^2.*(X.^2+Y.^2)+12*Y.^2-4*Y.^2.*(X.^2+Y.^2)-4); %Defines the analytical charge density
    
    % Define our differential operator for two dimensions as a matrix.
    A = (1 / h^2) * (diag(ones(1, number_of_points - 1), 1) + ...
        diag(-4 * ones(1, number_of_points), 0) + ...
        diag(ones(1, number_of_points - 1), -1));
    B = (1 / h^2) * diag(ones(1, number_of_points), 0);
    L = kron(diag(ones(1, number_of_points), 0), A) + ...
        kron(diag(ones(1, number_of_points - 1), 1), B) + ...
        kron(diag(ones(1, number_of_points - 1), -1), B);
    
    sigma = reshape(sigma, number_of_points^2, 1); %Reshapes sigma to have the same dimensions as the electric potential
    electricpotential_analytic=reshape(electricpotential_analytic,number_of_points^2,1); %Reshapes the electric potential to have the same dimensions as sigma for a matrix
    
    electric_potential=-inv(L)*sigma; %Uses equation 39 to define Poisson's equation in matrix format. No element wise multiplication is done since are interested in the error in scalar format and not as a matrix
    error=max(abs(electricpotential_analytic-electric_potential))/(max(abs(electricpotential_analytic))) %Determines the error from equation 50 as a scalar value
    
    plot(number_of_points,error) %Plots the error function for every number of points
    hold on %Holds the value so that multiple values can be plotted on the same figure
end %Terminates the for loop

error = 1.7594

error = 0.4996

error = 0.2639

error = 0.1606

error = 0.1122

error = 0.0810

error = 0.0625

error = 0.0494

error = 0.0399

error = 0.0331

error = 0.0279

xlabel('N','fontsize', 16) %Labels the x axis
ylabel('Error','fontsize', 16) %Labels the y axis

Answer 1

[Cris LaPierre]

It looks like you are plotting your data one point at a time. MATLAB does not automatically include a marker in the line format, so when you plot a single point, you cannot see the line.

The fix here is to add a markerstyle to your plot command.

clear, clear all, clc
vacuum_permittivity = 1; %Defines epsilon 0 value = 1
for num = 1:11 %Initialises for loop to the length of number_of_point
    number_of_point=11:4:51; %Initialises array of the number of points
    number_of_points=number_of_point(num); %Selects the part of the number of points array to use for the conditions below
    x_1 = -5; %Defines the minimum x axis value
    x_N = 5; %Defines the maximum x axis value
    x = transpose(linspace(x_1, x_N, number_of_points)); %Transposes x as a matrix with N number of points
    y = x; %Defines the x dimensions to be equal to the y dimensions
    h = x(2) - x(1); %Finds the 'h' value as the spacings between the points
    [X, Y] = meshgrid(x,y); %Initialises the meshgrid for the 
    electricpotential_analytic=(X.^2+Y.^2).*exp(-X.^2-Y.^2); %Defines the analytical electric potential
    sigma=exp(-X.^2-Y.^2).*(12*X.^2-4*X.^2.*(X.^2+Y.^2)+12*Y.^2-4*Y.^2.*(X.^2+Y.^2)-4); %Defines the analytical charge density
    
    % Define our differential operator for two dimensions as a matrix.
    A = (1 / h^2) * (diag(ones(1, number_of_points - 1), 1) + ...
        diag(-4 * ones(1, number_of_points), 0) + ...
        diag(ones(1, number_of_points - 1), -1));
    B = (1 / h^2) * diag(ones(1, number_of_points), 0);
    L = kron(diag(ones(1, number_of_points), 0), A) + ...
        kron(diag(ones(1, number_of_points - 1), 1), B) + ...
        kron(diag(ones(1, number_of_points - 1), -1), B);
    
    sigma = reshape(sigma, number_of_points^2, 1); %Reshapes sigma to have the same dimensions as the electric potential
    electricpotential_analytic=reshape(electricpotential_analytic,number_of_points^2,1); %Reshapes the electric potential to have the same dimensions as sigma for a matrix
    
    electric_potential=-inv(L)*sigma; %Uses equation 39 to define Poisson's equation in matrix format. No element wise multiplication is done since are interested in the error in scalar format and not as a matrix
    error=max(abs(electricpotential_analytic-electric_potential))/(max(abs(electricpotential_analytic))) %Determines the error from equation 50 as a scalar value
    
%     Add markerstyle ------->  vvv 
    plot(number_of_points,error,'o') %Plots the error function for every number of points
    hold on %Holds the value so that multiple values can be plotted on the same figure
end %Terminates the for loop

error = 1.7594

error = 0.4996

error = 0.2639

error = 0.1606

error = 0.1122

error = 0.0810

error = 0.0625

error = 0.0494

error = 0.0399

error = 0.0331

error = 0.0279

xlabel('N','fontsize', 16) %Labels the x axis
ylabel('Error','fontsize', 16) %Labels the y axis

[Jonas Freiheit]

Oh wow haha what an easy fix.

Or I could've used scatter(x,y)

[Stephen23]

Note that this creates multiple separate line objects, each with just one point (as indicated by the different colors). If you want to plot one line, then you will need to collect the data into one array and plot it after the loop.