How to zoom a figure and show the details?

Good day,

How can I zoom a figure to show the details and include the zoomed area of the figure within the original figure?

Answer 1

[Walter Roberson]

Create a second axes. copyobj() the content of the first axes to the second axes. Turn zoom on for the second axes.

Note: it is more work if the zoomed in version has to react to changes in the original plot.

[Mpho Lencwe]

Hello @Walter Roberson thank you very much for your quick respnse. Can you provide a step by step guide if you have an opened MATLAB Figure such as the Figure toolbar?

[Walter Roberson]

Are you working with figure() objects, or are you working with uifigure() objects (such as App Designer) ?

Answer 2

[Benjamin Kraus]

One way to do this is using tiledlayout.

im = imread('peppers.png');
t = tiledlayout(20,20);

% Create one big axes that fills the entire layout.
axbig = nexttile(t, [20 20]);

% Add the image to the big axes.
image(axbig, im);

% Now add a small axes in the upper right corner of the big axes.
axsmall = copyobj(axbig, t);
n = tilenum(t, 2, 16);
axsmall.Layout.Tile = n;
axsmall.Layout.TileSpan = [4 4];

% Now zoom-in on the big axes
axbig.XLim = [50 100];
axbig.YLim = [100 150];

% Optional: Add a rectangle to the small axes to reflect the big axes
% limits
rectangle(axsmall, 'Position', [50 100 50 50], 'LineWidth',1, 'EdgeColor','r');

If you want to get clever, you can use the LimitsChangedFcn to update the rectangle when the zoom of the big axes change.

[Benjamin Kraus]

I can't tell if you were trying to do the reverse: Soom the small image, so here's the reverse option.

im = imread('peppers.png');
t = tiledlayout(20,20);

% Create one big axes that fills the entire layout.
axbig = nexttile(t, [20 20]);

% Add the image to the big axes.
image(axbig, im);

% Now add a small axes in the upper right corner of the big axes.
axsmall = copyobj(axbig, t);
n = tilenum(t, 2, 12);
axsmall.Layout.Tile = n;
axsmall.Layout.TileSpan = [8 8];

% Now zoom-in on the small axes
axsmall.XLim = [75 100];
axsmall.YLim = [100 125];

% Hide the ticks on the small axes
xticks(axsmall,[]);
yticks(axsmall,[]);

% Add a rectangle to the small axes to reflect the big axes
% limits
rectangle(axbig, 'Position', [75 100 25 25], 'LineWidth',1, 'EdgeColor','r');