Odd getrect(FIG) behavior with subplots (r2015b)

Asked by Peter Cook on 18 Oct 2017

Latest activity Answered by Peter Cook on 24 Jan 2018

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I am noticing an unusual behavior of getrect when passing a figure handle as the argument. e.g.

hFig1 = figure(1); 
hAx1 = subplot(2,1,1); 
plot(randn(100),randn(100),'.');
%hFig1.CurrentAxes is hAx1
hAx2 = subplot(2,1,2); 
plot(randn(100),randn(100),'.');
%hFig1.CurrentAxes is now hAx2
%
%call getrect and select a rectangle on hAx1 (subplot 121)
>> r = getrect(hFig1)
r =
     -2.9528   10.5594    6.8848    6.7133
%
%call getrect again and select another rectangle on hAx1 (subplot 121)
>> r = getrect(hFig1)
r =
     -3.0138   -3.1389    6.0829    6.2778

Note the difference in r(2)//ymin - it seems that CurrentAxes property of hFig1 gets reassigned after the call to getrect.

Is is possible to either:

1. Interrupt getrect, reassign the CurrentAxes property of hFig1 to the subplot which has been clicked, then resume getrect?

2. Prevent the reassignment of the CurrentAxes property of hFig1 by getrect?

2 Comments

Jan on 18 Oct 2017

Note the difference in r(2)/ymin

I note a difference, but why is this unexpected? You have selected two different rectangles. Why do you assume a relation to the CurrentAxes? Please explain the problem again.

Peter Cook on 18 Oct 2017

r is returned not in figure coordinates, but data coordinates. The expected behavior for me is to return a rectangle corresponding to data coordinates of the axis on which I draw the rectangle.

In the example above, I have drawn 2 similar rectangles on the same subplot - the coordinates returned from rectangle 1 are in data coordinates of hAx2, the coordinates returned from the second rectangle I make on the same axes are in data coordinates of hAx1.

2 Answers

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Answer by Peter Cook on 24 Jan 2018

Accepted Answer

Since the desired subplot is not known ahead of time, I ended up using this block of code to first figure out which axes was clicked on, and then collect the rectangle coordinates using rbbox.

%wait for user input. 
%determine if mouse or keyboard has been pressed
%only continue if left mouse button is clicked
keyDown = waitforbuttonpress;
isLeftMouseClick = strcmp(handles.output.SelectionType,'normal');
if keyDown == 0 && isLeftMouseClick
%keyDown 1 = keyboard
%keyDown 0 = mouse click
pt1 = handles.output.CurrentPoint;
%determine which axes has been clicked on
whichAxes = 0;
for kAxes = 1:6
    if inpolygon(pt1(1),pt1(2),xv(kAxes,:),yv(kAxes,:))
        whichAxes = kAxes;
        break
    end
end
if ~whichAxes
    %dont do anything
else
    %get extents with mouse
    finalRect = rbbox;
...

0 Comments

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Answer by Steven Lord on 19 Oct 2017

From the help for the getrect function:

"RECT = getrect(FIG) lets you select a rectangle in the current axes of figure FIG using the mouse.

RECT = getrect(AX) lets you select a rectangle in the axes specified by the handle AX."

If I understand correctly what you want, I think the best solution is to use hAx1 and hAx2 in your getrect calls instead of trying to fiddle with which axes is current in the figure hFig1.

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