MATLAB: Copying a heatmap (in a subplot) to clipboard

clipboardheatmap

Hi, I have 4 subplots of which the 1st one is a heatmap. I would like to automatically put this into clipboard and have tried the following/

          ax1=subplot(1,4,1)    
          h = heatmap(T,'data1','data2','ColorVariable','data5');
          
          h.Colormap = cool;          
          %h.FontSize = 6
          h.XLabel = 'X position (um)';
          h.YLabel = 'Y position (um)';
          h.CellLabelFormat = '%.1f'
     
         %Copy to clipboard
         currAxes = gca
         newFig = figure('visible','off');
         newHandle = copyobj(currAxes,newFig);
         print(newFig,'-dmeta');   
         %print('-clipboard','-dmeta')

However this doesn't seem to work, is what I want to achieve possible?

thanks

Jason

Best Answer

You can copy the heatmap handle on to a new figure. Here's a functional demo with comments.

% load built-in matlab data
load patients
tbl = table(LastName,Age,Gender,SelfAssessedHealthStatus,...
    Smoker,Weight,Location);
% Plot a scatter plot & heatmap 
fh1 = figure(); 
subplot(2,1,1)
plot(tbl.Age, tbl.Weight,'bo')
subplot(2,1,2)
h = heatmap(tbl,'Smoker','SelfAssessedHealthStatus');
% Create new figure and copy heatmap to figure
fh2 = figure(); 
h2 = copyobj(h,fh2); 
% reposition heatmap axes
h2.Position = [0.13 0.11 0.65 0.80];

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MATLAB: How to change thickness and font of all axes in a subplot

The reason for the behavior that only the last axes is modified is because in your command, you are using 'gca' to set the properties. Using 'gca' gets hold of only the current axes, which in this case would be the last axes that was plotted on the figure.

In order to workaround the issue, you would need to get all the axes handles in the figure. To achieve this, you may use'findobj' function as findobj(gcf,'type','axes'). Please refer to the following code snippet:

subplot(211); plot(1:10);
subplot(212); plot(randi(10,1,10));
set(findobj(gcf,'type','axes'),'FontName','Arial','FontSize',12,'FontWeight','Bold', 'LineWidth', 2);

MATLAB: Heatmap Chart – Depict Squares rather than Rectangles

It drives me nutz that heatmap properties are special cases. To set the aspect ratio of the heatmap, you need to adjust the axis or figure size based on the number or rows & columns. Below are two functional demos. The first adjusts the axis size and recenters it. The second adjusts the figure size instead. I recommend the first method so the heatmap title and other graphics won't potentially expand beyond the figure boundaries.

Method 1: Adjust axis size and re-center

% Create heatmap using built-in Matlab data

load patients
tbl = table(LastName,Age,Gender,SelfAssessedHealthStatus,...
    Smoker,Weight,Location);
h = heatmap(tbl,'Smoker','SelfAssessedHealthStatus');
% Temporarily change axis units 
originalUnits = h.Units;  % save original units (probaly normalized)

h.Units = 'centimeters';  % any unit that will result in squares

% Get number of rows & columns

sz = size(h.ColorData); 
% Change axis size & position;
originalPos = h.Position; 
% make axes square (not the table cells, just the axes)

h.Position(3:4) = min(h.Position(3:4))*[1,1]; 
if sz(1)>sz(2)
    % make the axis size more narrow and re-center
    h.Position(3) = h.Position(3)*(sz(2)/sz(1)); 
    h.Position(1) = (originalPos(1)+originalPos(3)/2)-(h.Position(3)/2);
else
    % make the axis size shorter and re-center
    h.Position(4) = h.Position(4)*(sz(1)/sz(2));
    h.Position(2) = (originalPos(2)+originalPos(4)/2)-(h.Position(4)/2);
end
% Return axis to original units
h.Units = originalUnits;

Method 2: Adjust figure size

% Create heatmap using built-in Matlab data
load patients
tbl = table(LastName,Age,Gender,SelfAssessedHealthStatus,...
    Smoker,Weight,Location);
h = heatmap(tbl,'SelfAssessedHealthStatus','Smoker');
%                ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^   ^^^^^^    switched from method 1
% Temporarily change figure units 
fh = gcf();  %if you don't already have the figure handle
originalUnits.fig = fh.Units;  % save original units (probaly normalized)
originalUnits.ax = h.Units; 
fh.Units = 'centimeters';  % any unit that will result in squares
h.Units = 'Normalize'; 
% Get number of rows & columns
sz = size(h.ColorData); 
% make axes square (not the table cells, just the axes)
h.Position(3:4) = min(h.Position(3:4))*[1,1]; 
fh.InnerPosition(3:4) = min(fh.InnerPosition(3:4))*[1,1]; 
% Change figure position;
if sz(1)>sz(2)
    % make the figure size more narrow
    fh.InnerPosition(3) = fh.InnerPosition(3)*(sz(2)/sz(1)); 
else
    % make the figure size shorter
    fh.InnerPosition(4) = fh.InnerPosition(4)*(sz(1)/sz(2)); 
end
% return original figure units
fh.Units = originalUnits.fig; 
h.Units = originalUnits.ax;

Best Answer

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