MATLAB: Plotyy with sync yaxis tics on both sides

plotyy

Matlab does provide plotyy for plotting two graphs with different yaxis, but does not sync the tics. Also matlab provides no possibility to switch of the tics on the opposite side. so far my knowledge.

Now I want to plot two lines whith completely unrelated y-data. Currently the tics of left and right axis are not in sync and the plot therefore looks messed up.

So I need a solution to sync the tics on he y-axis on both sides. ( A problem also dicusses with the same topic here.)

My actual plot function is this one

 [AX,H1,H2] = plotyy(xaxis, ydata1, xaxis, ydata2);

A solution found on the thread linked above is the following one, but I do not see how to integrate it with my plot function (the plot is empy after I execute this code)

% dummy axes for the box and background color 
ax0 = axes; 
set (ax0, 'Box', 'on', 'Color', 'white', 'XTick', [], 'YTick', []); 
% first axes for left y-axis 
ax1 = axes ('Position', get (ax0, 'Position')); 
set (ax1, 'Box', 'off', 'Color', 'none', 'YAxisLocation', 'left'); 
% second axes for right y-axis assuming common x-axis controlled by ax1 
ax2 = axes ('Position', get (ax0, 'Position')); 
set (ax2, 'Box', 'off', 'Color', 'none', 'XTick', [], 'YAxisLocation', 'right');

Any hint welcome.

Best Answer

Matlab allows you to switch the ticks on both axes. plotyy is creating two overlapping axes on the figure. When you execute this command:

[AX,H1,H2] = plotyy(xaxis, ydata1, xaxis, ydata2);

AX returns a 2x1 double array with the two axis handles. If you want to adjust the ticks and tick labels for the right axis, the command would be:

set(AX(2),'YTick',<your array>)
set(AX(2),'YTickLabel',<your cell array>)

Related Solutions

MATLAB: How to have a graph with labeled x-axis ticks on the bottom and top of the graph

By default the plot should have a set of axes with a labeled set of tick marks on the bottom and the left. The example below explains how this can be done for both the X and Y axes with different Tick labels on all four sides.

plot(1:10);
% First, store the handle to those axes.
% Next create a second set of axes, 
% position This on top of the first and make it transparent.
ax1=gca;
ax2 = axes('Position', get(ax1, 'Position'),'Color', 'none');
set(ax2, 'XAxisLocation', 'top','YAxisLocation','Right');
% set the same Limits and Ticks on ax2 as on ax1;
set(ax2, 'XLim', get(ax1, 'XLim'),'YLim', get(ax1, 'YLim'));
set(ax2, 'XTick', get(ax1, 'XTick'), 'YTick', get(ax1, 'YTick'));
OppTickLabels = {'a' 'b' 'c' 'd' 'e' 'f' 'g' 'h' 'i' 'j' 'k'}
% Set the x-tick and y-tick  labels for the second axes
set(ax2, 'XTickLabel', OppTickLabels,'YTickLabel',OppTickLabels);

MATLAB: Plotyy with axis for each plot only on one side

The problem is that the tick marks of the left-hand axes (axis 1) are drawn on both the left and right edges of the plot. (Even when you use just the plot() function, the ticks marks appear on both the left- and right-hand side of the axis. )

Here is a work-around that might be acceptable.

figure
ax=plotyy(1:10,1:10,1:100,1:100);
set(ax(2),'YTick',[]) % Remove ticks of axis 2 (leaves right-hand ticks of axis 1)
set(ax(1),'Box','off') % Turn off box of axis 1, which removes its right-hand ticks

This code will remove the right-hand ticks of axis 1, but also right-hand and top edges of the box. I don't know of a better way.

However, you might also want to try this submission from the FEX: http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/4936-plt which I understand has better control over some of these things. (I haven't used it myself.)

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