Howto clip a scatter plot to axes with limits

Hi,

i have some scatter data and i'd like to scatterplot it with user defined axes limits and "equal axes" . However, if i do e.g.

[mgx mgy] = meshgrid(-60:60); %some example data
scatter(mgx(:), mgy(:));
xlim([-50 50]);
ylim([-50 50]);
axis equal;

the scatter data wont be clipped at the axes borders anymore. Whatever i do, i can't get the x/ylim AND the equal work at the same time with clipping. Interestingly the 'Clipping' property of the scattergroup remains 'on' all the time and changing it has no effect.

Any ideas how to do this? (I have Matlab 2011b)

[Thomas]

No solution?

Answer 1

[Kevin Bartlett]

Sorry, no answer. I have the same problem:

scatter(1,1,1000,'r','filled','MarkerEdgeColor', 'k'); axis([0 1 0 1]); box on

[Joseph Cheng]

I don't think that is the same problem. You're plotting something on the edge snd its inclusive. The point in the scatter is representing (1,1) not the area of the red dot. (were you looking for a quarter circle still within (1,1)

Answer 2

[Joseph Cheng]

Reverse the order that you're setting the parameters.

[mgx mgy] = meshgrid(-60:60); %some example data
scatter(mgx(:), mgy(:));
axis equal;
xlim([-50 50]);
ylim([-50 50]);

So my very quick perception of how it is doing this is that if you comment out the axis equal in the original post and see what comes up. You'll see that the x axis is longer already than the y axis. So by then calling axis equal it would then squash the x axis points to be square and not elongating the spaces in the y direction to equal x.

So by causing the spacings to be square then limiting the display you'd get what you'd like.

[Thomas]

Wow, an answer to my 1.5year old question... i didn't even remember that problem anymore.

However, your solution produces:

And as you can sse, while the axes proportions are equal and the axes are limited, the scatterplot is not clipped correctly to the axes (which makes it useless for publishing)...

[Joseph Cheng]

really because when i run it typed out i get

What version are you running. but i guess it doesn't matter. I don't think i ever came across anything that looked like that problem of plotting outside the axes even in earlier versions of the R2014a that i'm running now