How do I put more than one patternCustom plot into a figure when it seems like neither subplot or tiledlayout will work?

I am using multiple patternCustom plots that use CoordinateSystem="polar", Slice="theta" that I would like to show in the same figure in a 2x3 format. It seems that neither tiledlayout or subplots will work. I would think there has to be a straightforward way to do this, that someone can show me.

[Thorsten]

What goes wrong with tiledlayout or subplot? Without more information and without the function that you use for plotting it is hard to help.

[Aaron]

figure;
tiledlayout(2,3);

nexttile;
A = patternCustom( magE_H1 , theta_H1, phi_H1, CoordinateSystem="polar", Slice="theta", SliceValue=[100]);
nexttile;
B = patternCustom( magE_V1 , theta_V1, phi_V1, CoordinateSystem="polar", Slice="theta", SliceValue=[100]);
nexttile;
C = patternCustom( magE_H2 , theta_H2, phi_H2, CoordinateSystem="polar", Slice="theta", SliceValue=[100]);
nexttile;
D = patternCustom( magE_V2 , theta_V2, phi_V2, CoordinateSystem="polar", Slice="theta", SliceValue=[100]);
nexttile;
E = patternCustom( magE_H3 , theta_H3, phi_H3, CoordinateSystem="polar", Slice="theta", SliceValue=[100]);
nexttile;
F = patternCustom( magE_V3 , theta_V3, phi_V3, CoordinateSystem="polar", Slice="theta", SliceValue=[100]);

The above is an example of the plotting scheme I am trying. When I run it, it plots A in the correct position, then when it gets to the following nexttile, it overwrites it with a blank X and Y axis, then that is overwritten by a single plot of B, and so on... until finally, I just have a single plot of F showing.

Answer 1

[Adam Danz]

How do I put more than one patternCustom plot into a figure?

This is tricky because patternCustom does not have a parent argument. It plots to the current axes. The solution below uses subplot to create each axes and then immediately calls patternCustom so that it is plotted to the current axes.

Caveats

• If you're using uifigure, you must turn on the figure's HandleVisibility property so that the axes can be current.
• Tiledlayout cannot be used because patternCustom resizes the axes which is not permitted when using tiledlayout.

% Create data
h = helix;
[D,az,el] = pattern(h,2e9);
magE = D';
theta = 90-el;
phi = az';

thetaValues = 110:10:160;

fig = figure('color','w'); 
for i = 1:numel(thetaValues)
    ax = subplot(2,3,i);
    p = patternCustom(magE, theta, phi, CoordinateSystem="polar",Slice="theta", SliceValue=thetaValues(i));
    
    % Optional property settings:
    p.FontSize = 10; 
    p.LegendVisible = false;
    title(ax, sprintf('Theta = %g', thetaValues(i)))
    ax.Visible = 'on'; % To show title
    ax.XAxis.Visible = 'off'; 
    ax.YAxis.Visible = 'off'; 
end

Created in R2024b

[Aaron]

That's fantastic! Thanks for your help!

[Aaron]

Will this also work if each plot maintains the same theta but uses different data for magE, theta, and phi (comparing different antennas)?

[Adam Danz]

I would expect that to work.

[Aaron]

Awesome sauce! Thanks again.