Copy the curve in the Axes of a Figure to the Axes of a GUI

I have a figure (simple sine curve). Figure 1. And I have an Axis in a GUI (guide), with the tag axes1.

I want to copy this cruve from Figure 1 to the GUI.

I have tried the following on a button in the guide code:

FigAxes = findobj('Parent',figure(1),'Type','axes');
axes(handles.axes1);
plot(FigAxes);

I also tried to use findobj for the axes in the GUI (guide) and then use copyobj. and i dont know how.

FigAxes = findobj('Parent',figure(1),'Type','axes');
GUIAxes = findobj(); %code to find axes1 in guide;
copyobj(FigAxes,GUIAxes);

Nothing worked. Any suggestions?

[Dennis]

How is the figure created? I think the cleanest approach includes not beeing forced to look for an axes that might or might not exist.

[Sami Tuffaha]

the figure can was a normal plot code that was created seperately on the command window before starting the GUIDE. Here is an example, I also use other curves that are way more complicated than this:

x = 0:0.1:20;
y = sin(x);
plot(x,y,'r');

This code plots the curve on Figure 1.

I then start my GUI. And I want to transfer this figure into axes1 of my GUI

[Kevin Chng]

how about import x or y instead of the axes?

[Sami Tuffaha]

I am using other curves that are way more complicated than this simple sine curve. This sine curve is just an example. But I would be also interested to know how to import the x and y values from the workspace to the GUIDE.

BTW. the guide is just an axes and a button. the button should take figure 1 and copy it to the axes in the guide.

[Dennis]

Unfortunately i do not fully understand what you try to do. Basically you have a window with a sine wave:

 %this creates a figure f with a sine wave plot
  f=figure;
  a=axis;
  plot(sin(0:0.1:10))

now you want to copy it to a GUI which is the same, but has a button!

 %this creates a button in f
  uicontrol('Parent',f,'Style','pushbutton','String','A Button')

While it is possible to use functions like eval to copy workspace variables to a running GUI most (all?) experienced users in this forum will advice you against it. Stephen wrote a detailed tutorial about this topic link.

Maybe you can explain in detail what you want to achieve by copying your plot. What is your GUI supposed to do?

[Sami Tuffaha]

well, i want to be able to copy already present figures, that have one axes into my GUI.

here is the unfinished code for my button:

% --- Executes on button press in pushbutton5.
function pushbutton5_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
% hObject    handle to pushbutton5 (see GCBO)
% eventdata  reserved - to be defined in a future version of MATLAB
% handles    structure with handles and user data (see GUIDATA)
Fig = findobj('Parent',figure(1),'Type','axes');

by pressing the button, the figure 1 should be seen in the axes of the GUI. I have used the sine wave in the comment as a example. I want to copy ANY curve in an open Figure Window in to the GUI Axes.

[Adam]

copyobj takes a graphics object handle as its first argument and a new parent as its second.

Surely all you need is to get the handle of your line object and of your axes (you are inside your GUIDE code so you don't need findobj for your axes, just handles.axes1 works fine, or whatever the axes tag is)

Then

copyobj( hLine, handles.axes1 )

should work, where hLine is the line object from your figure 1. If you don't have it explicitly then you can access it via the children of the axes in figure 1, depending how complicated your figure 1 is and how many things are on its axes.

hLine = hFig.Children(1).Children(1)

would work if your figure just contains a single axes which in turn contains a single line object.

doc copyobj

explains the relationship that is expected to exist between the 'h' input argument and the 'p' input argument - i.e. 'p' must be an object of a type suitable to be a parent to 'h' - e.g. a figure if 'h' is an axes or an axes if 'h' is a Line object.

[Sami Tuffaha]

Hi Adam!

I understand. so my problem was that I was trying to copy an axes into an axes. I should haver tried to copy a line into an axes. thank you for this valueable info!

I have used the following code for the button:

hLine = findobj('Type', 'line');
copyobj( hLine, handles.axes1 );

and it worked! Is there a way to identify the line even further? Is there a code to say find the object: a line in figure 1 in the axes. I want to know what to write if I had more than one figure open.

When I have 2 figures open, it takes the line of the last figure. I want to tell the program what line from which figure it should take

Thanks

[Dennis]

You could use a 'tag'.

plot(1:3,'tag','thisone')
findobj('tag','thisone')

[Sami Tuffaha]

if the tag wasnt written in GUIDE-Code then you cant use it.

I think it would be better to write a code where you can find the object "findobj", by stating you want a line from a specific figure.

hLine = findobj('Type', 'line');

Can I write in this code, that I want the line from figure 1 for example?

[Adam]

If you have the handle of figure 1 as hFig then

hLine = findobj( hFig.CurrentAxes, 'Type', 'line' )

or

hLine = findobj( hFig, 'Type', 'line' )

would work, but again a lot depends on the figure and the axes you are taking these from - e.g. if you have multiple axes in your figure or multiple plots in your axes. In the latter case that may be what you want as it would copy all the line plots to your GUI.

Those two options would be equivalent if you just have 1 axes containing 1 line.

It is always useful to check the documentation though. This syntax of findobj is shown in

doc findobj

Where possible though it is always best to store handles when you create figure or axes or plot data though than have to find it afterwards using findobj

[Sami Tuffaha]

Hi Adam, thank you alot! Thank you Dennis and Kevin for your help too.

the following code worked:

hLine = findobj( figure(1), 'Type', 'line' );
copyobj( hLine, handles.axes1 );

How can I accept your reply as the answer of my question

[Adam]

I'll move it down to an answer

Answer 1

[Adam]

If you have the handle of figure 1 as hFig then

hLine = findobj( hFig.CurrentAxes, 'Type', 'line' )

or

hLine = findobj( hFig, 'Type', 'line' )

would work, but again a lot depends on the figure and the axes you are taking these from - e.g. if you have multiple axes in your figure or multiple plots in your axes. In the latter case that may be what you want as it would copy all the line plots to your GUI.

Those two options would be equivalent if you just have 1 axes containing 1 line.

It is always useful to check the documentation though. This syntax of findobj is shown in

doc findobj

Where possible though it is always best to store handles when you create figure or axes or plot data though than have to find it afterwards using findobj

[Sami Tuffaha]

the following code worked:

hLine = findobj( figure(1), 'Type', 'line' );
copyobj( hLine, handles.axes1 );

Answer 2

[Kevin Chng]

Hi,

Refer to my code, you are almost there.

a=figure;
plot([0 1],[0 1])
FigAxes = findobj('Parent',a,'Type','axes');
b= figure;
copyobj(FigAxes,b);

Kindly accept my answer if it helps you.

[Sami Tuffaha]

hi Kevin, this code copies the figure into another figure. My case is that, I already have the Figure (Figure1):

FigAxes = findobj('Parent',figure(1),'Type','axes');

and I want to copy the curve into an axes in the already open GUI (guide) axes:

axes(handles.axes1);

And I want this to happen when I click the button on my GUI.

Your code copies the curve from a figure window to another figure window, and this doesnt really help.

[Kevin Chng]

At this moment, i don't have answer for it. However, there is alternative solution which is save your axes as image and display them in your Guide axes. But i'm afraid this is not what you want.

[Sami Tuffaha]

displaying the cruve as an image in my guide axes will not solve my problem unfortunately :(

Answer 3

[Bruno Luong]

% Fake plot
axesrc = axes('Parent',figure(1));
plot(axesrc,sin(linspace(0,4*pi)));

axedest = axes('Parent',figure(2)); % Replace this with your GUI axes

copyobj(get(axesrc,'Children'),axedest)