MATLAB Plotting

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Data visualization is an essential skill for any aspiring data scientist or engineer. With MATLAB, you can create stunning visualizations with just a few lines of code. In this article, we'll explore some of MATLAB's key plotting functions and learn how to create beautiful graphs and charts.

Basic Plotting with MATLAB

MATLAB offers a wide variety of plotting functions that can be used to generate various types of data visualizations. Let's start by creating a simple line plot using the plot() function.

x = linspace(0, 2*pi, 100);
y = sin(x);
plot(x, y);

In this example, we first create an array x consisting of 100 evenly spaced values between 0 and 2π using the linspace() function. We then calculate the sine of each value in the x array and store the results in the y array. Finally, we use the plot() function to create a line plot of y against x.

Customizing Your Plots

MATLAB provides numerous options for customizing the appearance of your plots. You can change the color, linestyle, or marker style by specifying additional arguments in the plot() function.

x = linspace(0, 2*pi, 100);
y1 = sin(x);
y2 = cos(x);

plot(x, y1, 'r--', x, y2, 'b:');
legend('sin(x)', 'cos(x)');
xlabel('x-axis');
ylabel('y-axis');
title('Sine and Cosine Functions');

In this example, we plot two functions, sin(x) and cos(x), on the same graph. We customize the appearance of the lines using different colors (r for red and b for blue) and linestyles (-- for dashed and : for dotted). Additionally, we add a legend (legend()), x-axis label (xlabel()), y-axis label (ylabel()), and a title (title()).

Other Types of Plots

MATLAB offers many different types of plots, such as bar plots, pie charts, and histograms. Let's take a look at a few examples.

Bar plots

categories = {'Category 1', 'Category 2', 'Category 3'};
values = [10, 20, 30];

bar(values);
set(gca, 'XTickLabel', categories);
ylabel('Value');
title('Bar Plot Example');

Pie charts

categories = {'Category 1', 'Category 2', 'Category 3'};
values = [10, 20, 30];

pie(values, categories);
title('Pie Chart Example');

Histograms

data = randn(1, 1000);

histogram(data, 25);
xlabel('Value');
ylabel('Frequency');
title('Histogram Example');

MATLAB's plotting capabilities are vast, and this article barely scratches the surface. We encourage you to explore the official MATLAB documentation to learn more about the different plotting functions available and how to customize them to your liking.

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