an error in displaying a plot from scatter3?

I'm trying to make a movie of some data using scatter3. I found particular data that seems to break my plotting. Here is my minimal working example:

% Define the troublesome data
LocalP01TimesAbbrev= [0.985141016248456   0.983832758385265   0.982463398432200; ...
0.014564614437997   0.015818194233200   0.017125250702120; ...
0.014473309566424   0.015711762527657   0.017002051251182];
LocalP10TimesAbbrev = [   0.014858983751545   0.016167241614735   0.017536601567800; ...
0.985435385562003   0.984181805766800   0.982874749297880; ...
0.985526690433576   0.984288237472344   0.982997948748818];
ProbAlphaTimesAbbrev = [   0.173075907671362   0.170950942612534   0.168765455538531; ...
0.263402471915559   0.260491423443426   0.257493774027376; ...
0.432533162447323   0.427194569248721   0.421701733201043];
LocalPhi0001TimesAbbrev= [  0.467221621294768   0.486636417067630   0.506044435239474; ...
0.991724460901591  -0.987830595863805  -0.967391124238550; ...
0.968975981089195   0.988486840582777  -0.992006142330032];
LocalPhi1001TimesAbbrev = [   1.455931021018426   1.454016681105492   1.452092703739240;...
0.533792771964366  -1.464742280598276  -1.463270085144922 ; ...
0.501499482572618   0.501561621075348  -1.498376287448080];
% define figure for movie
figure('InnerPosition',[488   338   889   420]);
    for tstep=1:3
        % Make scatter plot movie frames
        CircleSize = 10000*ProbAlphaTimesAbbrev(:,tstep); CircleSize(CircleSize<10^-15)=10^-15;
        CircleColor = 100*ProbAlphaTimesAbbrev(:,tstep); CircleColor(CircleColor<10^-15) = 10^-15;
              scatter3(LocalP01TimesAbbrev(:,tstep),LocalP10TimesAbbrev(:,tstep),LocalPhi1001TimesAbbrev(:,tstep),CircleSize,CircleColor,'filled');
        xlim([0,1]); xlabel('p_{01}'); ylim([0,1]); ylabel('p_{10}'); zlim([-1,1]); zlabel('(\phi_{10}-\phi_{01})/\pi, phase between 10 and 01 states')
        title(sprintf('Conditional state of sites 1,2, \\surd{p_{00}}e^{i(\\phi_{00}-\\phi_{01})}|00> +\\surd{p_{01}}|01> + e^{i(\\phi_{10}-\\phi_{01})}\\surd{p_{10}}|10>+ e^{i(\\phi_{11}-\\phi_{01})}\\surd{p_{11}}|11>, time= %d.',tstep));
        drawnow
        Mymovie(tstep) = getframe(gcf);
        filename2 = sprintf('TestScatterPlot.gif');
        exportgraphics(gca,filename2,"Append",true);
    end
% The ending plot has no data points on it when I run the above loop.  
% However making a new figure and plotting the same data does show data points.
 
figure;  scatter3(LocalP01TimesAbbrev(:,tstep),LocalP10TimesAbbrev(:,tstep),LocalPhi1001TimesAbbrev(:,tstep),CircleSize,CircleColor,'filled');
xlim([0,1]); xlabel('p_{01}'); ylim([0,1]); ylabel('p_{10}'); zlim([-1,1]); zlabel('(\phi_{10}-\phi_{01})/\pi, phase between 10 and 01 states')
title(sprintf('Conditional state of sites 1,2, \\surd{p_{00}}e^{i(\\phi_{00}-\\phi_{01})}|00> +\\surd{p_{01}}|01> + e^{i(\\phi_{10}-\\phi_{01})}\\surd{p_{10}}|10>+ e^{i(\\phi_{11}-\\phi_{01})}\\surd{p_{11}}|11>, time= %0.3f.',tstep));

[Walter Roberson]

It works for me when I try it on my Mac (R2023b prerelease at least)

Historically, imwrite() had a problem when you specified 'WriteMode', 'append' for a fiie that did not exist. However, you are not using imwrite()

Answer 1

[VINAYAK LUHA]

Hi Emily,

If my understanding is correct, a purple sphere is also being plotted every frame, which doesn't show up in the plot due to limit restriction imposed on axis, however regarding the yellow sphere in frame three, it's center roughly has the coordinates , [0,0.98,-1.46] and since your z lim is set as [-1,1], it doesn't get displayed in the plot.

Hope this helps.

[Emily]

Vinayak, thank you! You are correct. I hadn't noticed that. If you would like to upgrade your comment to an answer, I'd accept it.