Calculate the area between two curves

I'm trying to calculate the area between two curves with different x-coordinate values.

I have tried using the trapz function found on other posts but recieve this error: "Point spacing must be a scalar specifying uniform spacing or a vector of x-coordinates for each data point" because of the different x-coordinate.

Is there an easy work around to this or a function that can handle non-uniform x-coordinates?

Data is attached.

Thanks.

Answer 1

[Star Strider]

Try this:

x1 = [0;1.55580000000001;2.85504000000000;3.82563000000000;4.82445000000000;5.79351000000000;6.79326000000000;7.80289000000001;8.82673000000000;9.85429000000001;10.8973400000000;11.9484900000000;13.0101000000000;14.0731500000000;15.1988100000000;16.3739900000000;17.6388500000000;19.0389500000000;20.6390600000000;22.4391900000000;24.0878500000000;25.6427000000000];
y1 = [0;0.401599999999998;1.07665000000000;2.11669000000000;3.11591000000000;4.15207000000000;5.15369000000000;6.14584000000000;7.12498000000000;8.08660000000000;9.04624000000000;9.99980000000000;10.9459000000000;11.8641100000000;12.7639100000000;13.5865100000000;14.3062400000000;14.8419500000000;15.3002500000000;15.4422700000000;15.1964700000000;14.7840700000000];
y2 = [0;0.384671293121388;1.57627140917836;3.16779178071786;4.85765709764627;6.55544840317967;8.24716485349601;9.92055454136918;11.5625117501394;13.1566591697723;14.6801931597464;16.0987653282826;17.3581033361660;18.3741093925497;19.0633321412604];
x2 = [0;2.00874340241544;3.67099954803351;4.95555059430456;6.10766783485649;7.24807408674708;8.39747273978297;9.57339210601188;10.7928140953118;12.0741007560704;13.4385870493858;14.9118791988194;16.5233808961725;18.2983453681205;20.2239606108829];

xv2 = linspace(min(x2), max(x2), 25);
yv2 = interp1(x2, y2, xv2);
xv1 = linspace(min(x1), max(x2), 25);
yv1 = interp1(x1, y1, xv2);

AUC1 = cumtrapz(xv1, yv1);
AUC2 = cumtrapz(xv2, yv2);
dAUC = AUC2 - AUC1;

figure
plot(x2, y2) 
hold on
plot (x1, y1) 
hold off

figure
plot(xv1, yv1)
hold on
plot(xv2,yv2) 
plot(xv2, dAUC, 'LineWidth',2)
hold off
grid
xlabel('X (Units)')
ylabel('Y (Units)')
legend('Curve 1', 'Curve 2', 'Area Difference', 'Location','NW')
text(xv2(end), dAUC(end), sprintf('Area Between = %7.3f \\rightarrow',dAUC(end)), 'HorizontalAlignment','right', 'VerticalAlignment','middle')

The cumulative area between the curves is about 39.416.

[Rhynchophorus]

Thanks for the help, this works great!

[Star Strider]

As always, my pleasure!

Answer 2

[the cyclist]

Because your curves are smooth, I think using interpolated curves will be useful:

xx = 0 : 0.01 : min(max(x1),max(x2));
yy1 = interp1(x1,y1,xx);
yy2 = interp1(x2,y2,xx);

Use the yy1 and yy2 variables, along with the uniformly spaced xx variable (same for both curves) to calculate areas.

[Rhynchophorus]

Thanks!