Hold plot after each push button press GUI

Asked by Tyler Murray on 13 Dec 2016

Latest activity Commented on by Tyler Murray on 14 Dec 2016

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I am trying to implement a "hold on" feature in my gui where the user can select and set of data and plot it on the same graph as the previous data. I saw one forum on here that helped but I am running into an issue. The code is:

ah = findobj(0,'Type','axes','Tag','MyPlotAxes');
     if isempty(ah)
         fh = figure('Name','Simulation','NumberTitle','off');
         ah = axes('Parent',fh, 'Tag', 'MyPlotAxes');
         hold(ah, 'on');
     end
plot(ah, x, y);

The two sets of data do plot on one graph, however the axes of the figure becomes pasted as the background of the GUI. I have tried redefining the axes specific to each plot but have had no luck.

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Geoff Hayes on 13 Dec 2016

Tyler - you may need to provide a small example of your code that we can run which exhibits this behaviour. Presumably you are programmatically creating a GUI (rather than using GUIDE). Is this the case? If I copy and paste your code into a test app, then each time I press the button the axes is updated and the GUI (figure) remains the same.

function testGui
    hGui = figure;
    hButton = uicontrol(hGui,'Style','pushbutton','String','Press Me','Position',[40, 80, 120, 40], 'Callback',@buttonCallback); 
    offset = 0;
    function buttonCallback(~, ~)
        offset = offset + 1;
        hAxes = findobj(0,'Type','axes','Tag','MyPlotAxes');
        if isempty(hAxes)
            hFig = figure('Name','Simulation','NumberTitle','off');
            hAxes = axes('Parent',hFig, 'Tag', 'MyPlotAxes');
            hold(hAxes, 'on');
        end
        x = linspace(-2*pi,2*pi,1000);
        y = sin(x) + offset;
        plot(hAxes, x, y);
    end
end

Alternatively, rather than using findobj to find the handle to the axes, just declare it in the workspace of the testGui function which is visible to its nested functions (including the callback)

function testGui
    hGui = figure;
    hButton = uicontrol(hGui,'Style','pushbutton','String','Press Me','Position',[40, 80, 120, 40], 'Callback',@buttonCallback); 
    offset = 0;
    hAxes = [];
    function buttonCallback(~, ~)
        offset = offset + 1;
        if isempty(hAxes)
            hFig = figure('Name','Simulation','NumberTitle','off');
            hAxes = axes('Parent',hFig, 'Tag', 'MyPlotAxes');
            hold(hAxes, 'on');
        end
        x = linspace(-2*pi,2*pi,1000);
        y = sin(x) + offset;
        plot(hAxes, x, y);
    end
end

Tyler Murray on 13 Dec 2016

Geoff, Thank you for your reply. I am using GUIDE. I will put a more detailed explanation below; my code is as follows.

function pushbutton1_Callback(~, ~, handles)  
x = randi([0 150],1,5);
y = randi([0 150],1,5);
if check == 1 && holdPlot == 0
        figure('Name','Simulation','NumberTitle','off')
        plot(x, y)
        grid on;
  elseif check == 1 && holdPlot == 1
        hAxes = findobj(0,'Type','axes','Tag','MyPlotAxes');
          if isempty(hAxes)
              hfig = figure('Name','Simulation','NumberTitle','off');
              hAxes = axes('Parent',hfig, 'Tag', 'MyPlotAxes');
              hold(hAxes, 'on');
          end
  end
      plot(hAxes, x, y);

The GUI I have has several check boxes that indicates what data to plot. There is a separate check box that says hold plot where data from the same check box will continuously be plotted against each other. So as the elseif states, if check (that specific data of interest) and holdPlot is checked, keep plotting them against each other. This is not the main function of the GUI which is why it is an elseif. But all of this happens within the pushbutton callback function.

I tried to define my axis hAxes = [] as you suggested but they plot did not "hold on", two separate figures were created. Thank you in advance for your help.

Geoff Hayes on 13 Dec 2016

Why are you drawing/plotting to a figure rather than adding an axes to your GUI (and plotting the data there)?

Tyler Murray on 13 Dec 2016

This is my first time working with a GUI and I don't know how to do it any other way haha

Tyler Murray on 14 Dec 2016

I'm all set I believe. It was because I wasn't specifying xlabel(axis, 'Words'). Thanks for everyone's help.

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