[Tex/LaTex] tikz/pgfplot — always same distance between marks

pgfplotsplottikz-pgf

Is there a way to get for all tikz-plots in one LaTeX document the same distance between the plot marks, ie the distance between the marks should be independent of sample size. It would be really great if this change wouldn't interfere with the legend like change the position of the marker in the legend etc. Thanks.

Edit: Unfortunately the distance of all data points (not in the mini example but for the real data) is not the same therefore it would be nice if I could define distance between the marks in cm.

\documentclass[tikz,border=1mm]{standalone}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.markings}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.11}
%\tikzset{mark/.style={
%        decoration={
%            markings,
%            mark= between positions 0 and 1 step 5mm with
%                {
%                %\node[circle,inner sep=2pt,fill=blue]{};
%            },
%        },
%        postaction={decorate}
%    }
%}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[]
\addplot[
  blue,
  domain=0:3,
  samples=100,
  mark=*
  ]
{exp(x)};
\addlegendentry{exp(x)};

\addplot[
  red,
  domain=0:3,
  samples=20,
  mark=diamond
  ]
{4*x};
\addlegendentry{4x};

\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

edit: Is is possible to pass to tikz such options like mark size or mark options={solid} ?

    \addplot [color=black,loosely dotted,line width=1.5pt, mark=*,mark size=3pt, mark=diamond,mark options={solid}]

edit2: I found out how I can set the marks solid in the legend but how can I do the same in for the plot? Any ideas how to get the plot marks solid in the actual plot?

\tikzset{
  nomorepostactions/.code={\let\tikz@postactions=\pgfutil@empty},
  mymark/.style={decoration={markings,
    mark= between positions 0 and 1 step (1/11)*\pgfdecoratedpathlength with{%
        \pgfuseplotmark{#1},%
      },  
    },
    postaction={decorate},
    /pgfplots/legend image post style={mark=#1,every path/.append style={nomorepostactions}},
  },
  every mark/.append style={solid,mark size=3},
}

enter image description here

Best Answer

Similar to Harish's answer but removes the need to plot twice. You basically need to stop the postaction reaching to the legend pictures because that is what is causing the funky mark placement. And that you can do with our good ol' answer to Applying a postaction to every path in TikZ

\documentclass[]{standalone}
\usepackage{pgfplots}
\pgfplotsset{compat=1.11}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations.markings}
\makeatletter
\tikzset{
  nomorepostactions/.code={\let\tikz@postactions=\pgfutil@empty},
  mymark/.style 2 args={decoration={markings,
    mark= between positions 0 and 1 step (1/11)*\pgfdecoratedpathlength with{%
        \tikzset{#2,every mark}\tikz@options
        \pgfuseplotmark{#1}%
      },  
    },
    postaction={decorate},
    /pgfplots/legend image post style={
        mark=#1,mark options={#2},every path/.append style={nomorepostactions}
    },
  },
}
\makeatother

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\begin{axis}[legend style={at={(0.5,0.95)}, anchor=north},
  legend entries={$\exp(x)$,$10\sin(5x)$},
]
\addplot[blue,dashed, domain=0:3,samples=15,mymark={o}{solid}]{exp(x)};
\addplot[red,domain=0:3, dashdotted,samples=200,
           mymark={diamond*}{draw=black,fill=yellow,solid}]{10*sin(deg(5*x))};
\end{axis}
\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

You can also add yet another parameter for how many marker you want to have by dividing the total path length to a fixed number. Here I went with 11. (replacing it with a distance is what you wish probably but I put here as an alternative)

enter image description here

with 1 cm mark distance

enter image description here

EDIT For the added style question, the code now gives

enter image description here

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Rotate a node but not its content: the case of the ellipse decoration

The source of the difficulty is that ellipses are constructed in a particular way in TikZ. They are paths that start from the x-axis and proceed counter-clockwise around their centre. The vast majority of the time, the exact parametrisation doesn't matter. You appear to have found the one situation where it does!

In the actual question, you only want to be able to mirror the ellipse, and so draw it starting from the negative x-axis (the title of the question suggests a more flexible approach). That's actually not too hard since we can exploit the symmetry of the ellipse. The key is to provide it with a negative x-radius, since then it will start from the negative x-axis (and proceed clockwise, but we could correct for that by negating the y-radius as well). To do this, we interrupt the call from the node shape to the drawing command and flip the sign of the x-radius. The simplest way to do this is to redefine the \pgfpathellipse macro to do the negation and then call the original macro. The following code does this.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{decorations,shapes,decorations.markings}
\makeatletter
\let\origpgfpathellipse=\pgfpathellipse
\def\revpgfpathellipse#1#2#3{%
  #2%
  \pgf@xa=-\pgf@x
  \origpgfpathellipse{#1}{\pgfqpoint{\pgf@xa}{0pt}}{#3}}
\makeatother

\tikzset{
  reversed ellipse/.style={
    ellipse,
    reverse the ellipse%
  },
  reverse the ellipse/.code={
    \let\pgfpathellipse=\revpgfpathellipse
  }
}
\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}
\node[ellipse,
  draw,
  postaction={
    decorate,
    decoration={
      markings,
      mark=at position 1 with {
        \arrow[line width=5pt,blue]{>}
      }
    }
  }
] at (0,0) {hello world};

\node[reversed ellipse,
  draw,
  postaction={
    decorate,
    decoration={
      markings,
      mark=at position 1 with {
        \arrow[line width=5pt,blue]{>}
      }
    }
  }
] at (0,-2) {hello world};
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}

Here's the result:

rotated ellipse

(the arrow got clipped, but you can see where it lies)

[Tex/LaTex] plotting two time series with bounds

This happens because PGFPlots only uses one "stack" per axis: You're stacking the second confidence interval on top of the first. The easiest way to fix this is probably to use the approach described in "Is there an easy way of using line thickness as error indicator in a plot?": After plotting the first confidence interval, stack the upper bound on top again, using stack dir=minus. That way, the stack will be reset to zero, and you can draw the second confidence interval in the same fashion as the first:

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{pgfplots, tikz}

\usepackage{pgfplotstable}

\pgfplotstableread{
temps   y_h y_h__inf    y_h__sup    y_f y_f__inf    y_f__sup    

1   0.237340    0.135170    0.339511    0.237653    0.135482    0.339823    
2   0.561320    0.422007    0.700633    0.165871    0.026558    0.305184    
3   0.694760    0.534205    0.855314    0.074856    -0.085698   0.235411    
4   0.728306    0.560179    0.896432    0.003361    -0.164765   0.171487    
5   0.711710    0.544944    0.878477    -0.044582   -0.211349   0.122184    
6   0.671241    0.511191    0.831291    -0.073347   -0.233397   0.086703    
7   0.621177    0.471219    0.771135    -0.088418   -0.238376   0.061540    
8   0.569354    0.431826    0.706882    -0.094382   -0.231910   0.043146    
9   0.519973    0.396571    0.643376    -0.094619   -0.218022   0.028783    
10  0.475121    0.366990    0.583251    -0.091467   -0.199598   0.016664    
}{\table}

\begin{document}
\begin{tikzpicture}

    \begin{axis}
    % y_h confidence interval
    \addplot [stack plots=y, fill=none, draw=none, forget plot]   table [x=temps, y=y_h__inf]   {\table} \closedcycle;
    \addplot [stack plots=y, fill=gray!50, opacity=0.4, draw opacity=0, area legend]   table [x=temps, y expr=\thisrow{y_h__sup}-\thisrow{y_h__inf}]   {\table} \closedcycle;
    % subtract the upper bound so our stack is back at zero
    \addplot [stack plots=y, stack dir=minus, forget plot, draw=none] table [x=temps, y=y_h__sup] {\table};

    % y_f confidence interval
    \addplot [stack plots=y, fill=none, draw=none, forget plot]   table [x=temps, y=y_f__inf]   {\table} \closedcycle;
    \addplot [stack plots=y, fill=gray!50, opacity=0.4, draw opacity=0, area legend]   table [x=temps, y expr=\thisrow{y_f__sup}-\thisrow{y_f__inf}]   {\table} \closedcycle;

    % the line plots (y_h and y_f)    
    \addplot [stack plots=false, very thick,smooth,blue]  table [x=temps, y=y_h]   {\table};
    \addplot [stack plots=false, very thick,smooth,blue]  table [x=temps, y=y_f]   {\table};
    \end{axis}

\end{tikzpicture}
\end{document}

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] Rotate a node but not its content: the case of the ellipse decoration

[Tex/LaTex] plotting two time series with bounds

Related Question