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Graphical output

Obtaining graphical output is very easy. The basic syntax is plot(x,y) which plots vector y (ordinate) against vector x (abscissa). For example to plot $\sin(t)$ against t, using the vectors we have already created, type

 
plot(t,sint)

The plot appears in a separate graphics window. Now you can add some axis labels and a rectangular grid by using menus or by typing

 
xlabel('t'), ylabel('sin t'), grid

To get your graph in red rather than black, and with a title, type:

 
plot(t,sint,'r'), title('Half period sine wave')

To position text onto the graph using cross-hairs the gtext command is available. Type help gtext for more information.

There are many other possibilities for controlling graphical output. You can have log-log or semi-log graphs, 3-D graphs of surfaces, contour plots, you can overlay various graphs on top of each other, control the axis ranges, and so on.

You can obtain hard copy of a graph (in fact, of the current contents of the Graphics Window) by typing print (or cuedpr if you want to save paper).

Next: On-line help Up: Getting started with Matlab Previous: Suppressing and controlling output

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