MATLAB Functions
Commands by Subject
Help Desk

Graphics Functions

Color Operations and Lighting
brighten Brighten or darken color map
caxis Pseudocolor axis scaling
colorbar Display color bar (color scale)
colordef Set up color defaults
colormap Set the color look-up table
contrast Gray color map to enhance image contrast
graymon Graphics figure defaults set for gray-scale monitor
hsv2rgb Hue-saturation-value to red-green-blue conversion
lighting Lighting mode
material Material reflectance mode
rgb2hsv RGB to HSVconversion
rgbplot Plot color map
shading Color shading mode
spinmap Spin the colormap
surfnorm 3-D surface normals
whitebg Change axes background color for plots

Basic Plots and Graphs
bar Vertical bar chart
barh Horizontal bar chart
hist Plot histograms
hold Hold current graph
loglog Plot using log-log scales
pie Pie plot
plot Plot vectors or matrices.
polar Polar coordinate plot
semilogx Semi-log scale plot
semilogy Semi-log scale plot
subplot Create axes in tiled positions

Hardcopy/File Output
orient Hardcopy paper orientation
print Print graph or save graph to file
printopt Configure local printer defaults

Surface, Mesh, and Contour Plots
contour Contour (level curves) plot.
contourc Contour computation
contourf Filled contour plot
hidden Mesh hidden line removal mode
meshc Combination mesh/contourplot
mesh 3-D mesh with reference plane
surf 3-D shaded surface graph
surface Create surface low-level objects
surfc Combination surf/contourplot
surfl 3-D shaded surface with lighting
trimesh Triangular mesh plot
trisurf Triangular surface plot

Domain Generation for Function Visualization
griddata Data gridding and surface fitting
meshgrid Generation of X and Y arrays for 3-D plots

Specialized Plotting
area Area plot
box Axis box for 2-D and 3-D plots
comet Comet plot
compass Compass plot
errorbar Plot graph with error bars
ezplot Easy to use function plotter
feather Feather plot
fill Draw filled 2-D polygons
fplot Plot a function
pareto Pareto chart
pie3 3-D Pie plot
plotmatrix Scatter plot matrix
pcolor Pseudocolor (checkerboard) plot
rose Plot rose or angle histogram
quiver Quiver (or velocity) plot
ribbon Ribbon plot
stairs Stairstep graph
stem Plot discrete sequence data

Three-Dimensional Plotting
bar3 Vertical 3-D bar chart
bar3h Horizontal 3-D bar chart
comet3 3-D Comet plot
cylinder Generate cylinder
fill3 Draw filled 3-D polygons in 3-space
plot3 Plot lines and points in 3-D space
quiver3 3-D Quiver (or velocity) plot
slice Volumetric slice plot
sphere Generate sphere
stem3 Plot discrete surface data
view 3-D graph viewpoint specification.
viewmtx Generate view transformation matrices
waterfall Waterfall plot

Plot Annotation and Grids
clabel Add contour labels to a contour plot
datetick Date formatted tick labels
grid Grid lines for 2-D and 3-D plots
gtext Place text on a 2-D graph using a mouse
legend Graph legend for lines and patches
plotyy Plot graphs with Y tick labels on the left and right
title Titles for 2-D and 3-D plots
xlabel X-axis labels for 2-D and 3-D plots
ylabel Y-axis labels for 2-D and 3-D plots
zlabel Z-axis labels for 3-D plots

Handle Graphics, General
copyobj Make a copy of a graphics object and its children
findobj Find objects with specified property values
gcbo Return object whose callback is currently executing
gco Return handle of current object
get Get object properties
rotate Rotate objects about specified origin and direction
ishandle True for graphics objects
set Set object properties

Handle Graphics, Object Creation
axes Create axis at arbitrary positions
figure Create Figures (graph windows)
image Display image (create image object)
light Create light object
line Create line low-level objects
patch Create patch low-level objects
text Add text to the current plot

Handle Graphics, Figure Windows
capture Screen capture of the current figure
clc Clear figure window
clf Clear Figure
close Close specified window
gcf Get current figure handle
newplot Graphics M-file preamble for NextPlot property
refresh Refresh figure

Handle Graphics, Axes
axis Plot axis scaling and appearance
cla Clear axis
gca Get current axis handle

Object Manipulation
reset Reset axis or figure
rotate3d Interactively rotate the view of a 3-D plot
selectmoveresize Interactively select, move, or resize objects

Graphical User Interface Creation
dialog Create a dialog box
errordlg Create error dialog box
helpdlg Display help dialog box
inputdlg Create input dialog
menu Generate a menu of choices for user input
msgbox Create message dialog box
questdlg Create question dialog box
textwrap Return wrapped string matrix for given UI Control
uicontrol Create user interface control
uigetfile Display dialog box to retrieve name of file for reading
uimenu Create user interface menu
uiputfile Display dialog box to retrieve name of file for writing
uiresume Used with uiwait, controls program execution
uisetcolor Interactively set a ColorSpec via a dialog box
uisetfont Interactively set a font by displaying a dialog box
uiwait Used with uiresume, controls program execution
waitbar Display wait bar
waitforbuttonpress Wait for key/buttonpress over figure
warndlg Create warning dialog box

Interactive User Input
ginput Graphical input from a mouse or cursor
zoom Zoom in and out on a 2-D plot

Region of Interest
dragrect Drag XOR rectangles with mouse
drawnow Complete any pending drawing
rbbox Rubberband box

Micellaneous Graphics Commands
convhull Convex hull
delaunay Delaunay triangulation
dsearch Search Delaunay triangulation for nearest point
inpolygon True for points inside a polygonal region
polyarea Area of polygon
tsearch Search for enclosing Delaunay triangle
voronoi Voronoi diagram