How can I plot a series of vectors, tip-to-tail, that begins at the origin and closes as if drawing them out by hand?

clear 
close all
clc

vectors = xlsread('Book1.xlsx');  %Enter any .xlsx document here
[M,N] = size(vectors);

for i=1:M
    x = (vectors(i,1)*cosd(vectors(i,2)))
    y = (vectors(i,1)*sind(vectors(i,2)))
    plot(x,y,'o')
end

[William Warren]

Without using quiver, compass, or any other related vector field Matlab function

[Stefan Raab]

You can rewrite your code like this:

x = (vectors(:,1).*cosd(vectors(:,2)));
y = (vectors(:,1).*sind(vectors(:,2)));
plot(x,y);

Then you don't need the for-loop. The important thing is the .* which is the elementwise multiplication.

[William Warren]

Thank you, that definitely makes the first step easier, but what about linking the vectors tip to tail?

[Stefan Raab]

I don't know if this is the best solution, but it should work that way for your example (generally you have to be careful if x,y are column or row vectors):

x = (vectors(:,1).*cosd(vectors(:,2)));
y = (vectors(:,1).*sind(vectors(:,2)));
plot([x; x(1)],[y; y(1)]);

Kind regards, Stefan

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

http://uk.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/38787-what-can-be-programmed-without-any-built-in-functions

All MATLAB plotting is vector field related.