MATLAB scatter in MATLAB®
Learn how to make 9 scatter charts in MATLAB, then publish them to the Web with Plotly.
Create Scatter Plot
Create x
as 200 equally spaced values between 0 and 3π. Create y
as cosine values with random noise. Then, create a scatter plot.
x = linspace(0,3*pi,200); y = cos(x) + rand(1,200); scatter(x,y) fig2plotly()
Vary Circle Size
Create a scatter plot using circles with different sizes. Specify the size in points squared
x = linspace(0,3*pi,200); y = cos(x) + rand(1,200); sz = linspace(1,100,200); scatter(x,y,sz) fig2plotly()
Corresponding elements in x
, y
, and sz
determine the location and size of each circle. To plot all circles with the equal area, specify sz
as a numeric scalar.
Vary Circle Color
Create a scatter plot and vary the circle color.
x = linspace(0,3*pi,200); y = cos(x) + rand(1,200); c = linspace(1,10,length(x)); scatter(x,y,[],c) fig2plotly()
Corresponding elements in x
, y
, and c
determine the location and color of each circle. The scatter
function maps the elements in c
to colors in the current colormap.
Fill the Markers
Create a scatter plot and fill in the markers. scatter
fills each marker using the color of the marker edge.
x = linspace(0,3*pi,200);
y = cos(x) + rand(1,200);
sz = 25;
c = linspace(1,10,length(x));
scatter(x,y,sz,c,'filled')
fig2plotly()
Specify Marker Symbol
Create vectors x
and y
as sine and cosine values with random noise. Then, create a scatter plot and use diamond markers with an area of 140 points squared.
theta = linspace(0,2*pi,150);
x = sin(theta) + 0.75*rand(1,150);
y = cos(theta) + 0.75*rand(1,150);
sz = 140;
scatter(x,y,sz,'d')
fig2plotly()
Change Marker Color and Line Width
Create vectors x
and y
as sine and cosine values with random noise. Create a scatter plot and set the marker edge color, marker face color, and line width.
theta = linspace(0,2*pi,300); x = sin(theta) + 0.75*rand(1,300); y = cos(theta) + 0.75*rand(1,300); sz = 40; scatter(x,y,sz,'MarkerEdgeColor',[0 .5 .5],... 'MarkerFaceColor',[0 .7 .7],... 'LineWidth',1.5) fig2plotly()
Vary Transparency Across Data Points
You can vary the transparency of scattered points by setting the AlphaData
property to a vector of different opacity values. To ensure the scatter plot uses the AlphaData
values, set the MarkerFaceAlpha
property to 'flat'
.
Create a set of normally distributed random numbers. Then create a scatter plot of the data with filled markers.
x = randn(1000,1); y = randn(1000,1); s = scatter(x,y,'filled');
Set the opacity of each point according to its distance from zero.
distfromzero = sqrt(x.^2 + y.^2);
s.AlphaData = distfromzero;
s.MarkerFaceAlpha = 'flat';
fig2plotly()
Specify Target Axes and Marker Type
Starting in R2019b, you can display a tiling of plots using the tiledlayout
and nexttile
functions. Call the tiledlayout
function to create a 2-by-1 tiled chart layout. Call the nexttile
function to create the axes objects ax1
and ax2
. Plot scattered data into each axes. In the bottom scatter plot, specify diamond filled diamond markers.
x = linspace(0,3*pi,200); y = cos(x) + rand(1,200); tiledlayout(2,1) % Top plot ax1 = nexttile; scatter(ax1,x,y) % Bottom plot ax2 = nexttile; scatter(ax2,x,y,'filled','d') fig2plotly()
Modify Scatter Series After Creation
Create a scatter plot and return the scatter series object, s
.
theta = linspace(0,1,500); x = exp(theta).sin(100theta); y = exp(theta).cos(100theta); s = scatter(x,y);
Use s
to query and set properties of the scatter series after it has been created. Set the line width to 0.6
point. Set the marker edge color to blue. Set the marker face color using an RGB triplet color.
s.LineWidth = 0.6;
s.MarkerEdgeColor = 'b';
s.MarkerFaceColor = [0 0.5 0.5];
fig2plotly()