Is there a limit on amount of data a figure can contain?

I was trying to make a figure with multiple subplots (3x3) with what I thought was not a whole lot of data. Every time the figure came across trying to draw contour lines on a subplot, MATLAB would crash with a message pop-up that said "MATLAB has encountered internal errors and need to close".

The contour command was last in sequence of plotting. On a whim, I changed the sequence trying to plot the contour first and then do simpler plots. Now, I could plot the contours but MATLAB crashed again after making like 4 subplots instead of 8 in the previous case.

So that got me thinking - is there a limit on amount of data a figure can capture?

[dpb]

AFAIK only in the sense of total memory...you don't say what version or give a sample script that causes the problem so anyone can try to test so not much we can do...if you can reproduce this (and sounds as though can at least on your system), a crash of any sort is definitely a reportable event to "official" TMW support.

Use the link and submit a bug/support request at link at main page www.mathworks.com Attach a minimal complete example that reproduces the problem and the other requested information in the submittal form.

[Aniket Vagha]

Hi, following up on this thread for a similar concern. I am trying this:

plot(Speed, Load, 'MarkerSize', 5, 'Color', [0.745 0.745 0.745])
hold on; contour(Speed, Load, Percent_Time)*

 *after using meshgrid to create square grids of X and Y data.

Here length(Speed) = length(Load) = 400k.

Now, I am exporting this figure as a subplot with some others to pdf using export_fig.

[http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/23629-export-fig].

The pdf file size I get is huge: 20 MB. If, however, I just use:

    contour(Speed, Load, Percent_Time)*

The final exported pdf file size reduces drastically: ~ 200 KB. Here, however, I cannot capture some of the detail seen in while plotting entire dataset.

It will be of great help if I get some advice on: 1. plotting the same detail (Speed, Load) but with a reduced file size after export. I have tried -m, -q, options and they do not seem to work. I tried other renderers but they were a tad too unclear.

2. An alternate way of plotting Speed vs Load data that amounts to lesser file size. I am considering sampling the data at 0.1 Hz. Current data is 1Hz.

Thanks!

[Walter Roberson]

That does not sound like a question about a limit on the amount of data that can be plotted.