marker size difference between 'plot' and 'scatter' function

if using the same size, the plotting result using 'plot' function and 'scatter' function are significantly different.

to keep them consistent, what is the relation, or, is there any relation between the size of 'scatter' and 'plot' function?

below is the test code:

figure
scatter(1:5,1:5,20)
figure
plot(1:5,1:5,'o','MarkerSize',20)

Thanks!

Yu

Answer 1

[dpb]

Per the documentation, scatter marker size property is marker proportional to area while the line marker property is proportional to diameter. The default values are 36 and 6 points, respectively, so they are the same visually by default. Use squared value of radius for line marker as area for scatter and they'll stay the same.

[Yu Li]

Thank you!

[Robert Mehlig]

Stumbled upon this whilst searching for the same thing regarding Python's Matplotlib library. Since it is based on MATLAB, the same thing applies there. I put,

scatter_size = 6
plot_size = 4*np.sqrt(scatter_size)/np.pi