Matlab: When I zoom in a plotyy graph yTicks don't update automatically

Question

As written above, I want to zoom into a graph that was created with plotyy. When I do this, the yTicks don't update to the new limits that are visible. So it can happen, if you zoom too much, that you don't see any yTicks. I found the ActionPostCallback function, but I don't get it work, whilst the xTicks are fine.

Code:

figure, plotyy(1:10,1:2:20,1:10,1:0.5:5.5)

Results in:

marsei · Answer 1 · 2015-11-18T14:40:07.923

4

You may want to set the YTickMode property to auto.

h = plotyy(1:10,1:2:20,1:10,1:0.5:5.5)
set(h, 'YTickMode','Auto')

Complete code:

figure

subplot(121)
h1 = plotyy(1:10,1:2:20,1:10,1:0.5:5.5)
title('Original')

subplot(122)
h2 = plotyy(1:10,1:2:20,1:10,1:0.5:5.5)
title('Zoom')
set(h2, 'YTickMode','Auto')

edited Nov 18 '15 at 14:40

answered Nov 18 '15 at 14:17

marsei

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You will need the first output of `plotyy` to obtain and use the axes handles, `gca` will only modify one of the axes. – sco1 Nov 18 '15 at 14:28
This will only work for one side, but yes this is the underlying problem. – nivag Nov 18 '15 at 14:28
yep - just seen that! The edit should do it. Thanks. – marsei Nov 18 '15 at 14:30
`findall` really isn't the best way to do that. What if they have other figures? – sco1 Nov 18 '15 at 14:30
You can always group the handles of interest in a vector - but true, this is not optimal as it is – marsei Nov 18 '15 at 14:31
Like I said, the first output of `plotyy` gives you that group. – sco1 Nov 18 '15 at 14:35
oops - I did not had a look at the handle of plotyy, edits made. Thanks @excaza ! – marsei Nov 18 '15 at 14:41

score 3 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:15

Because this behavior doesn't seem to be present in a 'normal' plot call, this looks like an internal bug with the creation of the axes objects by plotyy. As one alternative, you can stack multiple axes on top of each other and therefore utilize the 'default' (for lack of a better word) zoom behavior. This approach also allows you to fully control the behavior of both axes independently and avoid the seemingly many foibles of plotyy.

I've slightly adapted one of my previous answers as an example for this situation.

% Sample data
x = 1:10;
y1 = 1:2:20;
y2 = 1:0.5:5.5;

% Create axes & store handles
h.myfig = figure;
h.ax1 = axes('Parent', h.myfig, 'Box', 'off');

if ~verLessThan('MATLAB', '8.4')
    % MATLAB R2014b and newer
    h.ax2 = axes('Parent', h.myfig, 'Position', h.ax1.Position, 'Color', 'none', 'YAxisLocation', 'Right');
else
    % MATLAB 2014a and older
    ax1position = get(h.ax1, 'Position');
    h.ax2 = axes('Parent', h.myfig, 'Position', ax1position, 'Color', 'none', 'YAxisLocation', 'Right');
end

% Preserve axes formatting
hold(h.ax1, 'on');
hold(h.ax2, 'on');

% Plot data
plot(h.ax1, x, y1, 'b');
plot(h.ax2, x, y2, 'g');

linkaxes([h.ax1, h.ax2], 'x');

And a sample image:

Note that I've only linked the x, but you can link both x and y axes with the linkaxes call.

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 18 '15 at 14:27

2

For some reason plotyy sets the 'Ytickmode' of the axes to manual by default.

As plotyy creates 2 sets of axes for the two datasets setting 'Ytickmode' for each axis should solve this.

This can be done by

AX=plotyy(...) %this will create an axis with 2 elements one for each axis
AX(1).YTickMode='auto';
AX(2).YTickMode='auto';

answered Nov 18 '15 at 14:27

nivag

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ha, nice one - this is it! – marsei Nov 18 '15 at 14:33
This solution works best for me since I have subplots in my figure. Thanks a lot. – TAK Nov 18 '15 at 14:37

Matlab: When I zoom in a plotyy graph yTicks don't update automatically

3 Answers3