MATLAB: How to copy a figure with patches that have RGB ‘CData’ to the clipboard in MATLAB 7.1 (R14SP3)

hanghangsMATLABstuck

I have a figure which includes PATCH objects whose 'CData' property is specified as RGB colors. When I attempt to copy this figure using the "Copy Figure" item from the "File" menu, it takes a long time to execute.

During the time when MATLAB is occupied with this task, the MATLAB status bar may display "Busy", and many warnings such as:

Warning: RGB color data not yet supported in Painter's mode.

are produced. The behavior is the same whether the 'painters' renderer is used, or not.

When pasted, the resulting image is missing the PATCH objects.

Best Answer

The renderer used in this exporting process is chosen according to the "Clipboard format" preference located at

File->Preferences->Copy Template->Copy Options

(This can be different from the renderer used on-screen.) When this preference is set to "Metafile" or "Preserve information", the 'painters' renderer may be used (it is always used in the former case, sometimes in the latter).

However, the 'painters' renderer does not support rendering patches with RGB 'CData', and this results in the slow processing and warning messages.

Instead, you can force MATLAB to use another renderer during the export process. One way to do this is to select "Bitmap" for the "Clipboard format" option. Alternatively, you can export to the clipboard from the MATLAB command line by using the statement:

print -dbitmap

Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to export a figure containing a surface with RGB CData to an eps file using the painters renderer in MATLAB 7.6 (R2008a)

This warning is documented behavior of the painters renderer.

To work around the issue, first store the surface's CData to a variable. Then use the RGB2IND function to convert the RGB CData color array to an indexed color array with a colormap. Finally set the surfaces's CData property to the array of indexed colors and apply the colormap to the figure. For example:

s = surf(peaks(50), 'CData', cat(3, 0.8*ones(50), ones(50), 0.65*ones(50)));
rgb_colors = get(s, 'CData');
[i, map] = rgb2ind(rgb_colors, 64);
set(s, 'CData', double(i));
colormap(map);

Note that in R2008b and earlier RGB2IND was included in the Image Processing Toolbox. Starting with R2009a, RGB2IND is included as a core MATLAB function.

The same warning message can also occur in other scenarios where RGB CData is used. For instance the warning will be generated if a figure generated using HIST3 (from the Statistics Toolbox) is copied to the clipboard or printed using the painters renderer. In that case, the same workaround as above applies once you have a handle to the surface generated by HIST3 which can be found using the FINDOBJ function.

hist3(rand(100,2))
s = findobj('Type', 'surface')

MATLAB: Is it possible to copy a figure with transparent background color in MATLAB 7.9 (R2009b)

The ability to copy a figure with transparent background using command line is not available in MATLAB 7.9 (R2009b).

As a workaround use the following GUI option:

From the figure menu select 'Edit -> Copy Options …'
In the Copy Options dialog box, set the Clipboard Format setting to 'Metafile (may lose information)' and set the Figure Background Color setting to 'transparent'.
Now, copy the figure to the clipboard by selecting the Edit menu -> Copy Figure menu item.
Paste the figure into PowerPoint and you should get transparent figure background.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to export a figure containing a surface with RGB CData to an eps file using the painters renderer in MATLAB 7.6 (R2008a)

MATLAB: Is it possible to copy a figure with transparent background color in MATLAB 7.9 (R2009b)

Related Question