Different colormaps for subplots

I am having a frustrating problem that I think is related to how I am using handles to format the colormaps in my plots. I am trying to plot the first two subplots with the bluewhitered colormap to emphasize the positive versus negative values. But I want the third subplot (temperature) to use the jet colormap. When I run the full script for my figure I get jet coloring for all three. But if I only run the first subplots I get the coloring I want. Is there something in my code for the third subplot that is changing the first two? Please see figures for clarification. Thank you so much!

Here's my code:

f1=figure(1)

%PK alongshore

ax(1) = subplot(3,1,1)

hold on

pcolor(PK1.time,PK1.zbin,PK1.pE'); %Plot velocity

pcolor(PK2.time,PK2.zbin,PK2.pE');

plot(PK1.time,PK1.depth,'k'); %Plot depth

plot(PK2.time,PK2.depth,'k');

shading('flat'); caxis([-0.05 0.05]);

a=colorbar; colormap(bluewhitered);

set(a, 'Position', [0.93 .72 .015 .2])

set(get(a,'label'),'string','Alongshore','fontsize',14);

%legend('Current Alongshore (m/s)','Depth (m)');

%legend('Alongshore Velocity (m/s)')

set(gca,'fontsize',16)

ylabel('Depth (m)');

ylim([0 11]);

x = datenum('June-4-2018'):7:datenum('Oct-10-2018');

set(gca, 'XTick', x);

datetick('x','mm/dd','keepticks')

%PK cross-shore

ax(2) = subplot(3,1,2)

hold on

pcolor(PK1.time,PK1.zbin,PK1.pN'); %Plot velocity

pcolor(PK2.time,PK2.zbin,PK2.pN');

plot(PK1.time,PK1.depth,'k'); %Plot depth

plot(PK2.time,PK2.depth,'k');

shading('flat'); caxis([-0.05 0.05]);

b=colorbar; colormap(bluewhitered);

set(b, 'Position', [0.93 .42 .015 .2])

set(get(b,'label'),'string','Cross-shore','fontsize',14);

set(gca,'fontsize',16)

ylabel('Depth (m)');

ylim([0 11]);

x = datenum('June-4-2018'):7:datenum('Oct-10-2018');

set(gca, 'XTick', x);

datetick('x','mm/dd','keepticks')

%PK Temperature

ax(3) = subplot(3,1,3)

h=plot(MX,PK.PRESS(9,:),'k')

hold on

pcolor(MX,PK.mab,PK.TEMP); %Plot temperature

shading('interp');

ylabel('Depth (mab)');

c=colorbar; colormap(jet);

set(c, 'Position', [0.93 .11 .015 .2])

caxis([9 19.2]);

title(c,'\circC','fontsize',18);

set(gca,'fontsize',16);

x = datenum('June-4-2018'):7:datenum('Oct-10-2018');

set(gca, 'XTick', x);

datetick('x','mm/dd','keepticks');

linkaxes(ax,'x')

Answer 1

[Vishnurajan]

Hi,

please try

colormap(ax(1),bluewhitered)

colormap(ax(2),spring)

colormap(ax(3),jet)

[Heidi Hirsh]

Thank you!! This works!

[NEHA SINGH]

Thanks for the help.

[mohsen qutbi]

thanks a lot

Answer 2

[Louisa Waasmann]

Hi,

actually, I have exactly the same question, but

colormap(ax,cMap);

does not solve my problem. I get an error message "Unable to use a value of type matlab.graphics.axis.Axes as an index." but have no clue how to fix it. A minimal example can be found below.

Thank you very much!

%Create an image of 2 subplots with the same colorscale but different colormaps
colorscale=[0 1];
Overview= figure('units','normalized','position',[.0 .0 1 0.9])

ax1 = subplot(1,2,1);
colormap(ax1,parula) % Error message is related to this line 
ibg = imagesc(A, colorscale);
axis off
title('1')

ax2 = subplot(1,2,2);
colormap(ax2,spring)
iim = imagesc(B, colorscale);
axis off
title('2')

[Walter Roberson]

You accidentally created a variable named colormap so MATLAB thinks you are trying to index that variable.

[Louisa Waasmann]

I didn't realize that. Thanks a lot!