How to use full axes area when zooming image in App GUI

I plot an image using imshow in an axis in my APP GUI. Then there can be zoomed in to see details.

Now when you zoom in, only the part where the original image was, shows the zoomed image. All the area around it stays empty. Is there any way to make the zoomed image fill the entire axis area, without distorting the image shape?

original view (see the empty space on the sides):

zoomed in image: empty space on the sides remain, which is very annoying, certainly for images that are super slender). I'd like to have the zoomed image fill up the entire available space.

I already found out about imscrollpanel (and ImageAnalyst's zoom demo), but it doesn't work in an app UI...

Thanks!

[DGM]

It might not be a complete answer, but this is what I did:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/296234-how-to-zoom-out-further-using-image-imshow

Then again, I was using that with akzoom() and other things which can get flaky in some scenarios in newer versions.

You're right though. It's really annoying.