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It would be nice to have a function to shade between two curves. This is a common question asked on Answers and there are some File Exchange entries on it but it's such a common thing to want to do I think there should be a built in function for it. I'm thinking of something like
plotsWithShading(x1, y1, 'r-', x2, y2, 'b-', 'ShadingColor', [.7, .5, .3], 'Opacity', 0.5);
So we can specify the coordinates of the two curves, and the shading color to be used, and its opacity, and it would shade the region between the two curves where the x ranges overlap. Other options should also be accepted, like line with, line style, markers or not, etc. Perhaps all those options could be put into a structure as fields, like
plotsWithShading(x1, y1, options1, x2, y2, options2, 'ShadingColor', [.7, .5, .3], 'Opacity', 0.5);
the shading options could also (optionally) be a structure. I know it can be done with a series of other functions like patch or fill, but it's kind of tricky and not obvious as we can see from the number of questions about how to do it.
Does anyone else think this would be a convenient function to add?
In the past two years, large language models have brought us significant changes, leading to the emergence of programming tools such as GitHub Copilot, Tabnine, Kite, CodeGPT, Replit, Cursor, and many others. Most of these tools support code writing by providing auto-completion, prompts, and suggestions, and they can be easily integrated with various IDEs.
As far as I know, aside from the MATLAB-VSCode/MatGPT plugin, MATLAB lacks such AI assistant plugins for its native MATLAB-Desktop, although it can leverage other third-party plugins for intelligent programming assistance. There is hope for a native tool of this kind to be built-in.
I know we have all been in that all-too-common situation of needing to inefficiently identify prime numbers using only a regular expression... and now Matt Parker from Standup Maths helpfully released a YouTube video entitled "How on Earth does ^.?$|^(..+?)\1+$ produce primes?" in which he explains a simple regular expression (aka Halloween incantation) which matches composite numbers:
Here is my first attempt using MATLAB and Matt Parker's example values:
fnh = @(n) isempty(regexp(repelem('*',n),'^.?$|^(..+?)\1+$','emptymatch'));
fnh(13)
fnh(15)
fnh(101)
fnh(1000)
Feel free to try/modify the incantation yourself. Happy Halloween!
If I go to a paint store, I can get foldout color charts/swatches for every brand of paint. I can make a selection and it will tell me the exact proportions of each of base color to add to a can of white paint. There doesn't seem to be any equivalent in MATLAB. The common word "swatch" doesn't even exist in the documentation. (?) One thinks pcolor() would be the way to go about this, but pcolor documentation is the most abstruse in all of the documentation. Thanks 1e+06 !
As pointed out in Doxygen comments in code generated with Simulink Embedded Coder - MATLAB Answers - MATLAB Central (mathworks.com), it would be nice that Embedded Coder has an option to generate Doxygen-style comments for signals of buses, i.e.:
/** @brief <Signal desciption here> **/
This would allow static analysis tools to parse the comments. Please add that feature!
In case you haven't come across it yet, @Gareth created a Jokes toolbox to get MATLAB to tell you a joke.
As far as I know, starting from MATLAB R2024b, the documentation is defaulted to be accessed online. However, the problem is that every time I open the official online documentation through my browser, it defaults or forcibly redirects to the documentation hosted site for my current geographic location, often with multiple pop-up reminders, which is very annoying!
Suggestion: Could there be an option to set preferences linked to my personal account so that the documentation defaults to my chosen language preference without having to deal with “forced reminders” or “forced redirection” based on my geographic location? I prefer reading the English documentation, but the website automatically redirects me to the Chinese documentation due to my geolocation, which is quite frustrating!
In the past two years, MATHWORKS has updated the image viewer and audio viewer, giving them a more modern interface with features like play, pause, fast forward, and some interactive tools that are more commonly found in typical third-party players. However, the video player has not seen any updates. For instance, the Video Viewer or vision.VideoPlayer could benefit from a more modern player interface. Perhaps I haven't found a suitable built-in player yet. It would be great if there were support for custom image processing and audio processing algorithms that could be played in a more modern interface in real time.
Additionally, I found it quite challenging to develop a modern video player from scratch in App Designer.(If there's a video component for that that would be great)
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BTW,the following picture shows the built-in function uihtml function showing a more modern playback interface with controls for play, pause and so on. But can not add real-time image processing algorithms within it.
isequaln exists to return true when NaN==NaN.
unique treats NaN==NaN as false (as it should) requiring NaN to be replaced if NaN is not considered unique in a particular application. In my application, I am checking uniqueness of table rows using [table_unique,index_unique]=unique(table,"rows","sorted") and would prefer to keep NaN as NaN or missing in table_unique without the overhead of replacing it with a dummy value then replacing it again. Dummy values also have the risk of matching existing values in the table, requiring first finding a dummy value that is not in the table.
uniquen (similar to isequaln) would be more eloquent.
Please point out if I am missing something!
Imagine that the earth is a perfect sphere with a radius of 6371000 meters and there is a rope tightly wrapped around the equator. With one line of MATLAB code determine how much the rope will be lifted above the surface if you cut it and insert a 1 meter segment of rope into it (and then expand the whole rope back into a circle again, of course).
Something that had bothered me ever since I became an FEA analyst (2012) was the apparent inability of the "camera" in Matlab's 3D plot to function like the "cameras" in CAD/CAE packages.
For instance, load the ForearmLink.stl model that ships with the PDE Toolbox in Matlab and ParaView and try rotating the model.
clear
close all
gm = importGeometry( "ForearmLink.stl" );
pdegplot(gm)
Things to observe:
- Note that I cant seem to rotate continuously around the x-axis. It appears to only support rotations from [0, 360] as opposed to [-inf, inf]. So, for example, if I'm looking in the Y+ direction and rotate around X so that I'm looking at the Z- direction, and then want to look in the Y- direction, I can't simply keep rotating around the X axis... instead have to rotate 180 degrees around the Z axis and then around the X axis. I'm not aware of any data visualization applications (e.g., ParaView, VisIt, EnSight) or CAD/CAE tools with such an interaction.
- Note that at the 50 second mark, I set a view in ParaView: looking in the [X-, Y-, Z-] direction with Y+ up. Try as I might in Matlab, I'm unable to achieve that same view perspective.
Today I discovered that if one turns on the Camera Toolbar from the View menubar, then clicks the Orbit Camera icon, then the No Principal Axis icon:
That then it acts in the manner I've long desired. Oh, and also, for the interested, it is programmatically available: https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/ref/cameratoolbar.html
I might humbly propose this mode either be made more discoverable, similar to the little interaction widgets that pop up in figures:
Or maybe use the middle-mouse button to temporarily use this mode (a mouse setting in, e.g., Abaqus/CAE).
I've noticed is that the highly rated fonts for coding (e.g. Fira Code, Inconsolata, etc.) seem to overlook one issue that is key for coding in Matlab. While these fonts make 0 and O, as well as the 1 and l easily distinguishable, the brackets are not. Quite often the curly bracket looks similar to the curved bracket, which can lead to mistakes when coding or reviewing code.
So I was thinking: Could Mathworks put together a team to review good programming fonts, and come up with their own custom font designed specifically and optimized for Matlab syntax?
An option for 10th degree polynomials but no weighted linear least squares. Seriously? Jesse
Spring is here in Natick and the tulips are blooming! While tulips appear only briefly here in Massachusetts, they provide a lot of bright and diverse colors and shapes. To celebrate this cheerful flower, here's some code to create your own tulip!
Drumlin Farm has welcomed MATLAMB, named in honor of MathWorks, among ten adorable new lambs this season!
I found this plot of words said by different characters on the US version of The Office sitcom. There's a sparkline for each character from pilot to finale episode.
A high school student called for help with this physics problem:
- Car A moves with constant velocity v.
- Car B starts to move when Car A passes through the point P.
- Car B undergoes...
- uniform acc. motion from P to Q.
- uniform velocity motion from Q to R.
- uniform acc. motion from R to S.
- Car A and B pass through the point R simultaneously.
- Car A and B arrive at the point S simultaneously.
Q1. When car A passes the point Q, which is moving faster?
Q2. Solve the time duration for car B to move from P to Q using L and v.
Q3. Magnitude of acc. of car B from P to Q, and from R to S: which is bigger?
Well, it can be solved with a series of tedious equations. But... how about this?
Code below:
%% get images and prepare stuffs
figure(WindowStyle="docked"),
ax1 = subplot(2,1,1);
hold on, box on
ax1.XTick = [];
ax1.YTick = [];
A = plot(0, 1, 'ro', MarkerSize=10, MarkerFaceColor='r');
B = plot(0, 0, 'bo', MarkerSize=10, MarkerFaceColor='b');
[carA, ~, alphaA] = imread('https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2013/07/12/11/58/car-145008_960_720.png');
[carB, ~, alphaB] = imread('https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2014/04/03/10/54/car-311712_960_720.png');
carA = imrotate(imresize(carA, 0.1), -90);
carB = imrotate(imresize(carB, 0.1), 180);
alphaA = imrotate(imresize(alphaA, 0.1), -90);
alphaB = imrotate(imresize(alphaB, 0.1), 180);
carA = imagesc(carA, AlphaData=alphaA, XData=[-0.1, 0.1], YData=[0.9, 1.1]);
carB = imagesc(carB, AlphaData=alphaB, XData=[-0.1, 0.1], YData=[-0.1, 0.1]);
txtA = text(0, 0.85, 'A', FontSize=12);
txtB = text(0, 0.17, 'B', FontSize=12);
yline(1, 'r--')
yline(0, 'b--')
xline(1, 'k--')
xline(2, 'k--')
text(1, -0.2, 'Q', FontSize=20, HorizontalAlignment='center')
text(2, -0.2, 'R', FontSize=20, HorizontalAlignment='center')
% legend('A', 'B') % this make the animation slow. why?
xlim([0, 3])
ylim([-.3, 1.3])
%% axes2: plots velocity graph
ax2 = subplot(2,1,2);
box on, hold on
xlabel('t'), ylabel('v')
vA = plot(0, 1, 'r.-');
vB = plot(0, 0, 'b.-');
xline(1, 'k--')
xline(2, 'k--')
xlim([0, 3])
ylim([-.3, 1.8])
p1 = patch([0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 1, 1, 0], [248, 209, 188]/255, ...
EdgeColor = 'none', ...
FaceAlpha = 0.3);
%% solution
v = 1; % car A moves with constant speed.
L = 1; % distances of P-Q, Q-R, R-S
% acc. of car B for three intervals
a(1) = 9*v^2/8/L;
a(2) = 0;
a(3) = -1;
t_BatQ = sqrt(2*L/a(1)); % time when car B arrives at Q
v_B2 = a(1) * t_BatQ; % speed of car B between Q-R
%% patches for velocity graph
p2 = patch([t_BatQ, t_BatQ, t_BatQ, t_BatQ], [1, 1, v_B2, v_B2], ...
[248, 209, 188]/255, ...
EdgeColor = 'none', ...
FaceAlpha = 0.3);
p3 = patch([2, 2, 2, 2], [1, v_B2, v_B2, 1], [194, 234, 179]/255, ...
EdgeColor = 'none', ...
FaceAlpha = 0.3);
%% animation
tt = linspace(0, 3, 2000);
for t = tt
A.XData = v * t;
vA.XData = [vA.XData, t];
vA.YData = [vA.YData, 1];
if t < t_BatQ
B.XData = 1/2 * a(1) * t^2;
vB.XData = [vB.XData, t];
vB.YData = [vB.YData, a(1) * t];
p1.XData = [0, t, t, 0];
p1.YData = [0, vB.YData(end), 1, 1];
elseif t >= t_BatQ && t < 2
B.XData = L + (t - t_BatQ) * v_B2;
vB.XData = [vB.XData, t];
vB.YData = [vB.YData, v_B2];
p2.XData = [t_BatQ, t, t, t_BatQ];
p2.YData = [1, 1, vB.YData(end), vB.YData(end)];
else
B.XData = 2*L + v_B2 * (t - 2) + 1/2 * a(3) * (t-2)^2;
vB.XData = [vB.XData, t];
vB.YData = [vB.YData, v_B2 + a(3) * (t - 2)];
p3.XData = [2, t, t, 2];
p3.YData = [1, 1, vB.YData(end), v_B2];
end
txtA.Position(1) = A.XData(end);
txtB.Position(1) = B.XData(end);
carA.XData = A.XData(end) + [-.1, .1];
carB.XData = B.XData(end) + [-.1, .1];
drawnow
end
Updating some of my educational Livescripts to 2024a, really love the new "define a function anywhere" feature, and have a "new" idea for improving Livescripts -- support "hidden" code blocks similar to the Jupyter Notebooks functionality.
For example, I often create "complicated" plots with a bunch of ancillary items and I don't want this code exposed to the reader by default, as it might confuse the reader. For example, consider a Livescript that might read like this:
-----
Noting the similar structure of these two mappings, let's now write a function that simply maps from some domain to some other domain using change of variable.
function x = ChangeOfVariable( x, from_domain, to_domain )
x = x - from_domain(1);
x = x * ( ( to_domain(2) - to_domain(1) ) / ( from_domain(2) - from_domain(1) ) );
x = x + to_domain(1);
end
Let's see this function in action
% HIDE CELL
clear
close all
from_domain = [-1, 1];
to_domain = [2, 7];
from_values = [-1, -0.5, 0, 0.5, 1];
to_values = ChangeOfVariable( from_values, from_domain, to_domain )
to_values = 1×5
2.0000 3.2500 4.5000 5.7500 7.0000
We can plot the values of from_values and to_values, showing how they're connected to each other:
% HIDE CELL
figure
hold on
for n = 1 : 5
plot( [from_values(n) to_values(n)], [1 0], Color="k", LineWidth=1 )
end
ax = gca;
ax.YTick = [];
ax.XLim = [ min( [from_domain, to_domain] ) - 1, max( [from_domain, to_domain] ) + 1 ];
ax.YLim = [-0.5, 1.5];
ax.XGrid = "on";
scatter( from_values, ones( 5, 1 ), Marker="s", MarkerFaceColor="flat", MarkerEdgeColor="k", SizeData=120, LineWidth=1, SeriesIndex=1 )
text( mean( from_domain ), 1.25, "$\xi$", Interpreter="latex", HorizontalAlignment="center", VerticalAlignment="middle" )
scatter( to_values, zeros( 5, 1 ), Marker="o", MarkerFaceColor="flat", MarkerEdgeColor="k", SizeData=120, LineWidth=1, SeriesIndex=2 )
text( mean( to_domain ), -0.25, "$x$", Interpreter="latex", HorizontalAlignment="center", VerticalAlignment="middle" )
scaled_arrow( ax, [mean( [from_domain(1), to_domain(1) ] ) - 1, 0.5], ( 1 - 0 ) / ( from_domain(1) - to_domain(1) ), 1 )
scaled_arrow( ax, [mean( [from_domain(end), to_domain(end)] ) + 1, 0.5], ( 1 - 0 ) / ( from_domain(end) - to_domain(end) ), -1 )
text( mean( [from_domain(1), to_domain(1) ] ) - 1.5, 0.5, "$x(\xi)$", Interpreter="latex", HorizontalAlignment="center", VerticalAlignment="middle" )
text( mean( [from_domain(end), to_domain(end)] ) + 1.5, 0.5, "$\xi(x)$", Interpreter="latex", HorizontalAlignment="center", VerticalAlignment="middle" )
-----
Where scaled_arrow is some utility function I've defined elsewhere... See how a majority of the code is simply "drivel" to create the plot, clear and close? I'd like to be able to hide those cells so that it would look more like this:
-----
Noting the similar structure of these two mappings, let's now write a function that simply maps from some domain to some other domain using change of variable.
function x = ChangeOfVariable( x, from_domain, to_domain )
x = x - from_domain(1);
x = x * ( ( to_domain(2) - to_domain(1) ) / ( from_domain(2) - from_domain(1) ) );
x = x + to_domain(1);
end
Let's see this function in action
▶ Show code cell
from_domain = [-1, 1];
to_domain = [2, 7];
from_values = [-1, -0.5, 0, 0.5, 1];
to_values = ChangeOfVariable( from_values, from_domain, to_domain )
to_values = 1×5
2.0000 3.2500 4.5000 5.7500 7.0000
We can plot the values of from_values and to_values, showing how they're connected to each other:
▶ Show code cell
-----
Thoughts?
I recently had issues with code folding seeming to disappear and it turns out that I had unknowingly disabled the "show code folding margin" option by accident. Despite using MATLAB for several years, I had no idea this was an option, especially since there seemed to be no references to it in the code folding part of the "Preferences" menu.
It would be great if in the future, there was a warning that told you about this when you try enable/disable folding in the Preferences.
I am using 2023b by the way.