15.3.1 Introduction to Graphics Structures

The graphics functions use pointers, which are of class graphics_handle, in order to address the data structures which control visual display. A graphics handle may point to any one of a number of different base object types and these objects are the graphics data structures themselves. The primitive graphic object types are: figure, axes, line, text, patch, surface, text, image, and light.

Each of these objects has a function by the same name, and, each of these functions returns a graphics handle pointing to an object of the corresponding type. In addition there are several functions which operate on properties of the graphics objects and which also return handles: the functions plot and plot3 return a handle pointing to an object of type line, the function subplot returns a handle pointing to an object of type axes, the function fill returns a handle pointing to an object of type patch, the functions area, bar, barh, contour, contourf, contour3, surf, mesh, surfc, meshc, errorbar, quiver, quiver3, scatter, scatter3, stair, stem, stem3 each return a handle to a complex data structure as documented in Data Sources.

The graphics objects are arranged in a hierarchy:

1. The root is at 0. In other words, get (0) returns the properties of the root object.

2. Below the root are figure objects.

3. Below the figure objects are axes objects.

4. Below the axes objects are line, text, patch, surface, image, and light objects.

Graphics handles may be distinguished from function handles (see Function Handles) by means of the function ishandle. ishandle returns true if its argument is a handle of a graphics object. In addition, a figure or axes object may be tested using isfigure or isaxes respectively. The test functions return true only if the argument is both a handle and of the correct type (figure or axes).

The whos function can be used to show the object type of each currently defined graphics handle. (Note: this is not true today, but it is, I hope, considered an error in whos. It may be better to have whos just show graphics_handle as the class, and provide a new function which, given a graphics handle, returns its object type. This could generalize the ishandle() functions and, in fact, replace them.)

The get and set commands are used to obtain and set the values of properties of graphics objects. In addition, the get command may be used to obtain property names.

For example, the property "type" of the graphics object pointed to by the graphics handle h may be displayed by:

get (h, "type")

The properties and their current values are returned by get (h) where h is a handle of a graphics object. If only the names of the allowed properties are wanted they may be displayed by: get (h, "").

Thus, for example:

h = figure ();
get (h, "type")
ans = figure
get (h, "");
error: get: ambiguous figure property name ; possible matches:

__enhanced__           hittest                resize
__graphics_toolkit__   integerhandle          resizefcn
__guidata__            interruptible          selected
__modified__           inverthardcopy         selectionhighlight
__myhandle__           keypressfcn            selectiontype
__plot_stream__        keyreleasefcn          tag
alphamap               menubar                toolbar
beingdeleted           mincolormap            type
busyaction             name                   uicontextmenu
buttondownfcn          nextplot               units
children               numbertitle            userdata
clipping               outerposition          visible
closerequestfcn        paperorientation       windowbuttondownfcn
color                  paperposition          windowbuttonmotionfcn
colormap               paperpositionmode      windowbuttonupfcn
createfcn              papersize              windowkeypressfcn
currentaxes            papertype              windowkeyreleasefcn
currentcharacter       paperunits             windowscrollwheelfcn
currentobject          parent                 windowstyle
currentpoint           pointer                wvisual
deletefcn              pointershapecdata      wvisualmode
dockcontrols           pointershapehotspot    xdisplay
doublebuffer           position               xvisual
filename               renderer               xvisualmode
handlevisibility       renderermode

The root figure has index 0. Its properties may be displayed by: get (0, "").

The uses of get and set are further explained in get, set.

: res = isprop (obj, "prop")

Return true if prop is a property of the object obj.

obj may also be an array of objects in which case res will be a logical array indicating whether each handle has the property prop.

For plotting, obj is a handle to a graphics object. Otherwise, obj should be an instance of a class.

See also: get, set, ismethod, isobject.