Title for a color bar

Hi,

I have been trying to add title to my colorbar using the following lines of code:

col=colorbar;
colorbar('XTickLabel', {'10^{10}', '10^{11}', '10^{12}'}, 'XTick',log10(1e10):1:log10(1e12));
caxis([log10(1e10) log10(1e12)])
ylabel(col,'My Title')    

It however gives me a colorbar without the title. I then changed the position of the codes as:

colorbar('XTickLabel', {'10^{10}', '10^{11}', '10^{12}'}, 'XTick',log10(1e10):1:log10(1e12));
caxis([log10(1e10) log10(1e12)])
col=colorbar;
ylabel(col,'My Title')  

and this time it gives me the colorbar with the title but the xticks are not what I had mentioned.

Wondering what I am doing wrong here and why changing the sequence of codes have such a dramtic effect.

Thanks.

Answer 1

[Voss]

col = colorbar('XTickLabel', {'10^{10}', '10^{11}', '10^{12}'}, 'XTick',log10(1e10):1:log10(1e12));
caxis([log10(1e10) log10(1e12)])
ylabel(col,'My Title')

[Mathan]

Perfect, it works. Thank you so much!

Do you happen to know what my lines of codes were doing (especially getting different results when I simply reshuffled the lines of codes).

[Voss]

You're welcome!

Basically, each time you call colorbar a new colorbar is created, which deletes any previous colorbars you had, in this case.

Here's the three attempts (including mine), with comments explaining what happens with the colorbars:

% Try 1
figure()
% make a colorbar
col=colorbar;
% make another colorbar with these XTicks, etc.
% (deletes the 'col' colorbar) 
colorbar('XTickLabel', {'10^{10}', '10^{11}', '10^{12}'}, 'XTick',log10(1e10):1:log10(1e12));
% col no longer exists:
ishandle(col) 

ans = logical
   0

% set the color limits of the axes
caxis([log10(1e10) log10(1e12)])

try
    % ylabel the col colorbar that doesn't exist anymore -> error
    ylabel(col,'My Title')
catch ME
    disp(sprintf('Error in ylabel: %s',ME.message));
end

Error in ylabel: Incorrect number of input arguments

% Try 2
figure()
% make a colorbar with these XTicks, etc.
colorbar('XTickLabel', {'10^{10}', '10^{11}', '10^{12}'}, 'XTick',log10(1e10):1:log10(1e12));
% set the color limits of the axes
caxis([log10(1e10) log10(1e12)])
% make a new colorbar (has default XTicks etc.) -> old colorbar is deleted
col=colorbar;
% label the new colorbar -> ok but you don't have the old one anymore
ylabel(col,'My Title')  

% Solution
figure()
% make a colorbar with these XTicks, etc., store it as 'col'
col = colorbar('XTickLabel', {'10^{10}', '10^{11}', '10^{12}'}, 'XTick',log10(1e10):1:log10(1e12));
% set the color limits of the axes
caxis([log10(1e10) log10(1e12)])
% ylabel colorbar col
ylabel(col,'My Title')

[Mathan]

Wow - thank you for the detailed answer. Makes perfect sense.

Thanks once again!

[Voss]

Happy to help!