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The 2023 community contest - MATLAB Flipbook Mini Hack - starts today on Nov. 6th!
Participants across all skill levels are welcome to join! You can participate by creating a new animation or remixing an existing one with up to 2,000 characters of MATLAB code.
Contest Tips:
  1. Before you start, we highly recommend you check out the two examples - Bouncing and Spinning - to understand how the contest works.
  2. Share your thoughts, ask questions, or connect with others in our contest discussion channel.
Note that the first week (Nov. 6th, 2023, ~ Nov. 12th, 2023) is for creating entries only. Voting does not begin until the second week.
We look forward to seeing your creative work. Let the contest begin!
Here's a MATLAB class I wrote that leverages the MATLAB Central Interface for MATLAB toolbox, which in turn uses the publicy available Community API. Using this class, I've created a few Favorites that show me what's going on in MATLAB Central - without having to leave MATLAB 🙂
The class has a few convenient queries:
  • Results for the last 7 days
  • Results for the last 30 days
  • Results for the current month
  • Results for today
And supporting a bunch of different content scopes:
  • All MATLAB Central
  • MATLAB Answers
  • Blogs
  • Cody
  • Contests
  • File Exchange
  • Exclude Answers content
The results are displayed in the command window (which worked best for me) and link to each post. Here's what that looks like for this command
>> CommunityFeed.thisMonth("app designer", CommunityFeed.Scope.ExcludeAnswers)
Let me know if you find this class useful and feel free to suggest changes.
New Cheat Sheet Alert!
Level up your data organization and access skills in MATLAB with our latest cheat sheet! Download the full cheat sheet on MATLAB GitHub for Students here.
Recently, I came across a post about the JIT compiler on this Korean blog. In the post. The writer discussed the concept of the "Compile Threshold" and how it is calculated.
"The JVM accumulates the number of calls for each method called and compiles when the number exceeds a certain number. In other words, there is a standard for checking how often it is called and then deciding, 'It is time to compile.' This standard is called the compilation threshold. But what is this and why should it be used as a standard?"
The concept of the "Compile Threshold," as used above, seems to be more commonly associated with Tracing just-in-time compilation.
The writer used the simple Java code below to calculate the threshold.
for (int i = 0; i < 500; ++i) {
long startTime = System.nanoTime();
for (int j = 0; j < 1000; ++j) {
new Object();
}
long endTime = System.nanoTime();
System.out.printf("%d\t%d\n", i, endTime - startTime);
}
Since the MATLAB execution engine uses JIT compilation, I just wanted to perform the same experiment that the writer did.
I experimented using simple codes based on the code in the blog. I iterated a function 500 time using for-loop and calculated the execution time for each iteration using tic and toc. Then I plotted the execution time for each loop as blow. First five execution times are much higher than followings (10 times!) The test is very rough so I am not sure that I can conclude "MATLAB has Compile Threshold and it is 5!" but this value is actually correct ;-)
t0 = 0;
tfinal = 10;
y0 = [20;20];
timeToRun = zeros(500,1);
for i = 1:500
tStart = tic;
[preypeaks,predatorpeaks] = solvelotka(t0, tfinal, y0);
tEnd = toc(tStart);
timeToRun(i) = tEnd;
end
VS Code Extension for MATLAB was introduced back in April and has been downloaded 75K times since. Do people here use VS Code for writing MATLAB code?
Earlier this year a bunch of MATLAB users got together to talk about their hobbies in a lightning talk format.
  • Using "UIHTML" to create app components and Lightning
  • Creating generative art with MATLAB
  • Making MATLAB run on the Steam Deck (it was a wager)
Do you use MATLAB for hobbies?
https://www.mathworks.com/videos/series/awesome-matlab-projects-lightning-talks-april-5-2023.html
Matt J
Matt J
Last activity on 15 Oct 2023

Do Reinvent the Wheel

Are there Matlab features which intend to satisfy your needs but fail in certain critical areas, forcing you to abandon them completely in favor of your own version or a 3rd party alternative? Perhaps these features are starting to improve with new Matlab releases, but not quickly enough? Share your own frustrations in the comments below.
Here are two of mine:
1. volumeViewier
volumeViewer is 6 years old now. It is fine when you only need to view one 3D image at a time, but I never do. In my work, I am putting several images side-by-side for visual comparison. For such work, you need to be able to programmatically change axis limits and grayscale and use linkprop to reflect these changes across all the images. With 2D image comparison, all that is possible, but volumeViewer supports none of those things. So, I resort to my own 3D viewer
2.Tomographic projection commands RADON and FANBEAM
These commands are provided in the Image Processing Toolbox seemingly for no other reason than to support homework exercises for people taking introductory tomographic imaging courses. They fail in a number of ways for people who need to do serious tomographic imaging work, producing artifacts or nonlinear effects which shouldn't be there. See for example Why isn't FANBEAM linear? or Radon Transform works unexpectedly. Moreover, the toolbox still provides tomographic projectors only for 2D imaging not 3D, even though 64-bit RAM has made volumetric imaging commonplace in Matlab for at least 10 years. Luckily, there are now freely available 3rd party alternatives like TIGRE.
goc3
goc3
Last activity on 6 Nov 2023

Don't Reinvent the Wheel

Have you ever learned that something you were doing manually in MATLAB was already possible using a built-in feature? Have you ever written a function only to later realize (or be told) that a built-in function already did what you needed?
Two such moments come to mind for me.
1. Did you realize that you can set conditional breakpoints? Neither did I, until someone showed me that feature. To do that, open or create a file in the editor, right click on a line number for any line that contains code, and select Set Conditional Breakpoint... This will bring up a dialog wherein you can type any logical condition for which execution should be paused. Before I learned about this, I would manually insert if-statements during debugging. Then, after fixing each bug, I would have to delete those statements. This built-in feature is so much better.
2. Have you ever needed to plot horizontal or vertical lines in a plot? For the longest time, I would manually code such lines. Then, I learned about xline() and yline(). Not only is less code required, these lines automatically span the entire axes while zooming, panning, or adjusting axis limits!
Share your own Aha! moments below. This will help everyone learn about MATLAB functionality that may not be obvious or front and center.
(Note: While File Exchange contains many great contributions, the intent of this thread is to focus on built-in MATLAB functionality.)
Moja
Moja
Last activity on 13 Oct 2023

caret on macbook pro

The carot symbol on my keyboard (ˆ shift+6) doesn't work on matlab. Matlab doesn't recognize it so I can't write any equation with power symbol. I tried every possible solution on the web and it doesn't work. even in the character viewer I don't have any result when I search ''caret".
Exciting news for students! 🚀Simulink Student Challenge 2023 is live! Unleash your engineering skills and compete for exciting rewards. Submission deadline is December 12th, 2023!
https://www.mathworks.com/academia/student-challenge/simulink-student-challenge-2023.html
Adam Danz
Adam Danz
Last activity on 13 Oct 2023

Approximating π with durations

Over the weekend I came across a pi approximation using durations of years and weeks (image below, Wolfram, eq. 89), accurate to 6 digits using the average Gregorian year (365.2425 days).
Here it is in MATLAB. I divided by 1 week at the end rather than multiplying by its reciprocal because you can’t divide a numeric by a duration in MATLAB (1/week).
weeks = @(n)n*days(7);
piApprox = ((years(13)-weeks(6))/years(13) + weeks(3)) / weeks(1)
% piApprox = 3.141593493469302
Here’s a breakdown
  • The first argument becomes 12.885 yrs / 13 yrs or 0.99115
  • Add three weeks: 0.99115 + 3 weeks = 21.991 days
  • The reduced fraction becomes 21.991 days / 7 days
Now it looks a lot closer to the more familiar approximation for pi 22/7 but with greater precision!
Adam Danz
Adam Danz
Last activity on 6 Mar 2024

To hold or not to hold

I'm curious how the community uses the hold command when creating charts and graphics in MATLAB. In short, hold on sets up the axes to add new objects to the axes while hold off sets up the axes to reset when new objects are added.
When you use hold on do you always follow up with hold off? What's your reasoning on this decision?
Can't wait to discuss this here! I'd love to hear from newbies and experts alike!
Ben Pasquariello
Ben Pasquariello
Last activity on 19 Jan 2024

MATLAB GitHub for Students!

Calling all students! New to MATLAB or need helpful resources? Check out our MATLAB GitHub for Students repository! Find MATLAB examples, videos, cheat sheets, and more!
Visit the repository here: MATLAB GitHub for Students
The way we've solved ODEs in MATLAB has been relatively unchanged at the user-level for decades. Indeed, I consider ode45 to be as iconic as backslash! There have been a few new solvers in recent years -- ode78 and ode89 for example -- and various things have gotten much faster but if you learned how to solve ODEs in MATLAB in 1997 then your knowledge is still applicable today.
In R2023b, there's a completely new framework for solving ODEs and I love it! You might argue that I'm contractually obliged to love it since I'm a MathWorker but I can assure you this is the real thing!
I wrote it up in a tutorial style on The MATLAB Blog https://blogs.mathworks.com/matlab/2023/10/03/the-new-solution-framework-for-ordinary-differential-equations-odes-in-matlab-r2023b/
The new interface makes a lot of things a much easier to do. Its also setting us up for a future where we'll be able to do some very cool algorithmic stuff behind the scenes.
Let me know what you think of the new functionality and what you think MathWorks should be doing next in the area of ODEs.
Thats the task:
Given a square cell array:
x = {'01', '56'; '234', '789'};
return a single character array:
y = '0123456789'
I wrote a code that passes Test 1 and 2 and one that passes Test 3 but I'm searching a condition so that the code for Test 3 runs when the cell array only contains letters and the one for Test 1 and 2 in every other case. Can somebody help me?
This is my code:
y = []
[a,b]=size(x)
%%TEST 3
delimiter=zeros(1,a)
delimiter(end)=1
delimiter=repmat(delimiter,1,b)
delimiter(end)=''
delimiter=string(delimiter)
y=[]
for i=1:a*b
y = string([y x(i)])
end
y=join(y,delimiter)
y=erase(y,'0')
y=regexprep(y,'1',' ')
%%TEST 1+2
for i=1:a*b
y = string([y x(i)])
y=join(y)
end
y=erase(y,' ' )
Mayla
Mayla
Last activity on 13 Sep 2023

Problem 2022. Find a Pythagorean triple

That's the question: Given four different positive numbers, a, b, c and d, provided in increasing order: a < b < c < d, find if any three of them comprise sides of a right-angled triangle. Return true if they do, otherwise return false .
I wrote this code but it doesn't pass test 7. I don't really understand why it isn't working. Can somebody help me?
function flag = isTherePythagoreanTriple(a, b, c, d)
a2=a^2
b2=b^2
c2=c^2
d2=d^2
format shortG
if a2+b2==c2
flag=true
else if a2+b2==d2
flag=true
else if a2+c2==d2
flag=true
else if c2+b2==d2
flag=true
else flag=false
end
end
end
end
end
Mayla
Mayla
Last activity on 24 Oct 2023

Problem 44952. Find MPG of Lightest Cars

That's the question:
The file cars.mat contains a table named cars with variables Model, MPG, Horsepower, Weight, and Acceleration for several classic cars.
Load the MAT-file. Given an integer N, calculate the output variable mpg.
Output mpg should contain the MPG of the top N lightest cars (by Weight) in a column vector.
I wrote this code and the resulting column vector has the right values but it doesn't pass the tests. What's wrong?
function mpg = sort_cars(N)
load cars.mat
sorted=sortrows(cars,4)
mpg = sorted(1:N,2)
end
I recently have found that I am no longer able to give my difficulty rating for questions on Cody after sucessfully completing a question. This is obviously not a big deal, I was just wondering if this was an issue on my end or if there was some change that I was not aware of.
The option to rate does not pop up after solving a problem, and the rating in general does not even show up anymore when answering questions (though it is visible from problem groups).
The MATLAB Answers community is an invaluable resource for all MATLAB users, providing selfless assistance and support. However, with the emergence of AI-based chatbots, like chatGPT, there may be concerns about the future relevance and utility of the MATLAB Answer community. What are your thoughts?