Color Order for Line Plots
 

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<a href="https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/2019/11/04/color-order-for-line-plots/">Color Order for Line Plots</a>
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<p>Posted by <b><a href="https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/profile/authors/349729-cleve-moler?s_tid=blg_to_profile">Cleve Moler</a></b>, <time>November 4, 2019</time>
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<div><p>Line plots with a color order from one of our color maps are useful, and pretty.</p><h3>Contents</h3><div><ul><li><a href="https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/2019/11/04/color-order-for-line-plots/#6367f293-7ad1-4972-a5cf-0605cb8120ec">Default</a></li><li><a href="https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/2019/11/04/color-order-for-line-plots/#79ab2bff-6b0c-4ef2-b2bd-82153857ffa8">Parula</a></li><li><a href="https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/2019/11/04/color-order-for-line-plots/#ac830ae1-fdc2-49f5-8484-f7c254439318">Jet</a></li><li><a href="https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/2019/11/04/color-order-for-line-plots/#863432e4-81ca-4768-abde-720716d12313">Copper</a></li><li><a href="https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/2019/11/04/color-order-for-line-plots/#fb22d603-b3b9-47d2-80e1-0c9a2ed8dd1d">Peaks</a></li><li><a href="https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/2019/11/04/color-order-for-line-plots/#b084ee88-43aa-45f9-a21b-c8e0fe91f4f8">Kuramoto</a></li><li><a href="https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/2019/11/04/color-order-for-line-plots/#2a5eb1c7-c146-42bf-a164-d5a38a99fc04">Clean up</a></li></ul></div><h4>Default<a></a></h4><p>When you plot a two dimensional array, you ordinarily get a bunch of lines, colored like this.</p><pre> n = 19;
plot(magic(n),<span>'linewidth'</span>,2)
title(sprintf(<span>'magic(%d)'</span>,n))
</pre><img src="http://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/cplot_blog_01.png"/> <p>The color of these lines is obtained by cycling through the "color order", which, by default, is these seven colors.</p><pre> rgb = get(gca,<span>'colororder'</span>)
show_colors(rgb)
</pre><pre>rgb =
0 0.4470 0.7410
0.8500 0.3250 0.0980
0.9290 0.6940 0.1250
0.4940 0.1840 0.5560
0.4660 0.6740 0.1880
0.3010 0.7450 0.9330
0.6350 0.0780 0.1840
</pre><img src="http://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/cplot_blog_02.png"/> <p>This default color order is designed to distinguish distinct lines by well separated colors. It does a good job at this.</p><h4>Parula<a></a></h4><p>But I often want to emphasize the interrelations among related lines. So, I set the color order to one obtained from our colormaps. <tt>Parula</tt> is my first choice.</p><pre> set(gca,<span>'colororder'</span>,parula(7))
rgb = get(gca,<span>'colororder'</span>)
show_colors(rgb)
</pre><pre>rgb =
0.2422 0.1504 0.6603
0.2780 0.3556 0.9777
0.1540 0.5902 0.9218
0.0704 0.7457 0.7258
0.5044 0.7993 0.3480
0.9871 0.7348 0.2438
0.9769 0.9839 0.0805
</pre><img src="http://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/cplot_blog_03.png"/> <p>I am about to use this function.</p><pre> type <span>cplot.m</span>
</pre><pre>function cplot(Y,cmap)
close
[m,n] = size(Y);
a = axes('colororder',cmap(m));
line(a,1:n,Y,'linewidth',2)
box on
end
</pre><p>Here is my first example.</p><pre> n = 19;
cplot(magic(n),@parula)
title(sprintf(<span>'magic(%d)'</span>,n))
</pre><img src="http://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/cplot_blog_04.png"/> <p>By the way, you are seeing three kinds of magic squares -- when the order <tt>n</tt> is odd, when <tt>n</tt> is divisible by four, and when <tt>n</tt> is even but not divisable by four.</p><h4>Jet<a></a></h4><p>Let's not forget our former best friend, <tt>jet</tt>.</p><pre> show_colors(jet(7))
</pre><img src="http://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/cplot_blog_05.png"/> <pre> n = 20;
cplot(magic(n),@jet)
title(sprintf(<span>'magic(%d)'</span>,n))
</pre><img src="http://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/cplot_blog_06.png"/> <h4>Copper<a></a></h4><p>I am especially fond of the <tt>copper</tt> colormap in these situations.</p><pre> show_colors(copper(7))
</pre><img src="http://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/cplot_blog_07.png"/> <p>Singly even magic squares are the most complicated.</p><pre> n = 18;
cplot(magic(n),@copper)
title(sprintf(<span>'magic(%d)'</span>,n))
</pre><img src="http://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/cplot_blog_08.png"/> <h4>Peaks<a></a></h4><p>We ordinarily use our <tt>peaks</tt> function to demo <tt>surf</tt> or <tt>contour</tt> plots, but it is also useful to view <tt>peaks</tt> as a series of lines.</p><pre> n = 40;
cplot(peaks(n)',@parula)
title(sprintf(<span>'peaks(%d)'</span>,n))
</pre><img src="http://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/cplot_blog_09.png"/> <h4>Kuramoto<a></a></h4><p>I am using colored line plots in my blog posts about <a href="https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/2019/10/30/stability-of-kuramoto-oscillators/">Kuramoto oscillators</a>.</p><pre> load <span>history</span> <span>H</span>
kuramoto_plots(H)
</pre><img src="http://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/files/cplot_blog_10.png"/> <h4>Clean up<a></a></h4><pre> set(gcf,<span>'position'</span>,<span>'factory'</span>)
close
</pre><p><br/><a><span>Get the MATLAB code </span></a><br/><br/>
Published with MATLAB® R2018b<br/></p></div> </div>
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<dl><dt><strong>Category:</strong>  </dt><dd><a href="https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/category/color/">Color,</a></dd> <dd><a href="https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/category/graphics/">Graphics,</a></dd> <dd><a href="https://blogs.mathworks.com/cleve/category/magic-squares/">Magic Squares</a></dd> </dl> </div>
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