MATLAB: Insert image behind graph

image

Hi All. I am attempting to insert an image of a location on a map behind a graph on MatLAB. Any help would be greatly welcomed. Thanks

Best Answer

You can use hold to combine two things in the same axes. And you can set the XData & YData of an image to position.
Combining these two things would look something like this:
img = imread('ngc6543a.jpg');
theta = linspace(0,4*pi,200);
image('CData',img,'XData',[4 8],'YData',[-1/4 1/4])
hold on
plot(theta,sin(theta)./theta,'LineWidth',3)
hold off
A couple of things to look out for.
Order matters a lot here. If you do the image after the plot, you won't be able to see the plot because it will go behind the image. You can use the uistack function to fix this, but it's usually easier to just create them in the correct order.
The image function behaves differently depending on whether you set CData (as I did above) or just pass the data in like this:
image(img,'XData',[4 8],'YData',[-1/4 1/4])
When you call image this way, it's going to set a bunch of properties on the axes such as YDir and the limits. You can override all of those, but you'll probably find it simpler to use the CData form when you're doing this sort of thing.
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