MATLAB Graph: Introduction

All of these stuffs are abstracted from Matlab Help file, re-writing/summarizing them down will enhance my understanding over this part:

Three Components of a Graph:

• Figure window: display the graph
• Coordinate system: so that graph is placed within axis, which are contained by the Figure
• other graph objects: lines and surfaces

Basic Plotting Commands:

• plot: graph 2-D data with linear scales for both axes
• plot3: graphe 3-D data with linear scales for both axes
• loglog, semilogx, lemilogy, plotyy et al. 

Plotting Steps:

1. Preparing the data                                      [x = 0:0.1:1; y = bessel(1,x);]
2. Select a window and position a plot region within the window  [figure 1; subplot(2,2,1);]
3. Call elementary plotting function               [h = plot(x,y)]
4. Select line and marker characters               [set(h, 'LineWidth', 2, {'LineStyle'}, {'--'} ]
5. Set axis limit, tick marks, and grid lines     [axis ([0 12 -0.5 1]); grid on;]
6. Annotate the graph with axis labels, legend and text  [xlabel('Time'); legand(h, 'First')]
7. export graph                                              [ print -depsc -tiff -r200 myplot]

The Figure Window:

• MATLAB directs graphics output to a window separated from command window, which is refereed to as Figure
• Graphics functions automatically create new figure windows if none currently exist. If a figure already exists, MATLAB uses that window.

These are some of the most common matlab graphic process, and there are other specialized figures, such as contour, histogram, et al, which I will not detailed them here.