Plotting 4 curves in a single plot with 3 y-axes

Question

I have 4 sets of values  y1  y2  y3  y4 and one set x  The y values are of different ranges  and I need to plot them as separate curves with separate sets of values on the y-axis   To put it simple  I need 3 y-axes with different values  scales  for plotting on the same figure   Any help appreciated  or tips on where to look

User · Answer

One possibility you can try is to create 3 axes stacked one on top of the other with the 'Color' properties of the top two set to 'none' so that all the plots are visible. You would have to adjust the axes width, position, and x-axis limits so that the 3 y axes are side-by-side instead of on top of one another. You would also want to remove the x-axis tick marks and labels from 2 of the axes since they will lie on top of one another.

Here's a general implementation that computes the proper positions for the axes and offsets for the x-axis limits to keep the plots lined up properly:

%# Some sample data:
x = 0:20;
N = numel(x);
y1 = rand(1,N);
y2 = 5.*rand(1,N)+5;
y3 = 50.*rand(1,N)-50;

%# Some initial computations:
axesPosition = [110 40 200 200];  %# Axes position, in pixels
yWidth = 30;                      %# y axes spacing, in pixels
xLimit = [min(x) max(x)];         %# Range of x values
xOffset = -yWidth*diff(xLimit)/axesPosition(3);

%# Create the figure and axes:
figure('Units','pixels','Position',[200 200 330 260]);
h1 = axes('Units','pixels','Position',axesPosition,...
          'Color','w','XColor','k','YColor','r',...
          'XLim',xLimit,'YLim',[0 1],'NextPlot','add');
h2 = axes('Units','pixels','Position',axesPosition+yWidth.*[-1 0 1 0],...
          'Color','none','XColor','k','YColor','m',...
          'XLim',xLimit+[xOffset 0],'YLim',[0 10],...
          'XTick',[],'XTickLabel',[],'NextPlot','add');
h3 = axes('Units','pixels','Position',axesPosition+yWidth.*[-2 0 2 0],...
          'Color','none','XColor','k','YColor','b',...
          'XLim',xLimit+[2*xOffset 0],'YLim',[-50 50],...
          'XTick',[],'XTickLabel',[],'NextPlot','add');
xlabel(h1,'time');
ylabel(h3,'values');

%# Plot the data:
plot(h1,x,y1,'r');
plot(h2,x,y2,'m');
plot(h3,x,y3,'b');

and here's the resulting figure:

enter image description here

User · Answer

This is a great chance to introduce you to the File Exchange    Though the organization of late has suffered from some very unfortunately interface design choices  it is still a great resource for pre-packaged solutions to common problems   Though many here have given you the gory details of how to achieve this   prm    I had a similar need a few years ago and found that addaxis worked very well    It was a File Exchange pick of the week at one point    It has inspired later  probably better mods   Here is some example output   addaxis example http   www mathworks com matlabcentral fx files 9016 1 addaxis screenshot jpg  I just searched for  plotyy  at File Exchange   Though understanding what s going on in important  sometimes you just need to get things done  not do them yourself   Matlab Central is great for that

User · Answer

In your case there are 3 extra y axis  4 in total  and the best code that could be used to achieve what you want and deal with other cases is illustrated above   clear clc  x   linspace 0 1 10   N   numel x   y   rand 1 N   y extra 1   5  rand 1 N  5  y extra 2   50  rand 1 N  20  Y    y y extra 1 y extra 2    xLimit    min x  max x    xWidth   xLimit 2 -xLimit 1   numberOfExtraPlots   2  a   0 05  N    numberOfExtraPlots 1   for i 1 N      L 1- numberOfExtraPlots a -0 2      axesPosition     0 1  numberOfExtraPlots a   0 1 L 0 8       if i  1          color    rand 1  rand 1  rand 1            figure  Units   pixels   Position   200 200 1200 600           axes  Units   normalized   Position  axesPosition                  Color   w   XColor   k   YColor  color                  XLim  xLimit  YLim   min Y i     max Y i                       NextPlot   add            plot x Y i     Color  color           xlabel  Time  s              ylab   strcat  Values of dataset 0  num2str i            ylabel ylab           numberOfExtraPlots   numberOfExtraPlots - 1      else         color    rand 1  rand 1  rand 1            axes  Units   normalized   Position  axesPosition                  Color   none   XColor   k   YColor  color                  XLim  xLimit  YLim   min Y i     max Y i                       XTick      XTickLabel      NextPlot   add            V    xWidth a  i-1   L          b xLimit  V 0           x  linspace b 1  b 2  10           plot x  Y i     Color  color           ylab   strcat  Values of dataset 0  num2str i            ylabel ylab           numberOfExtraPlots   numberOfExtraPlots - 1      end end   The code above will produce something like this

User · Answer

I know of plotyy that allows you to have two y-axes  but no  plotyyy    Perhaps you can normalize the y values to have the same scale  min max normalization  zscore standardization  etc     then you can just easily plot them using normal plot  hold sequence   Here s an example      random data x 1 20  y    randn 20 1  1   0   randn 20 1  5   10   randn 20 1  0 3   50       plotyy plotyy x y   1   x y   3       orginial figure subplot 221   plot x y   1   x y   2   x y   3   title  original    legend   y1   y2   y3        normalize   y-min   max-min     gt   0 1  yy   bsxfun  times  bsxfun  minus y min y    1  range y    subplot 222   plot x yy   1   x yy   2   x yy   3   title  minmax       standarize   y - mean    std    gt  N 0 1  yy   zscore y   subplot 223   plot x yy   1   x yy   2   x yy   3   title  zscore       softmax normalization with logistic sigmoid    gt   0 1  yy   1      1   exp  -zscore y       subplot 224   plot x yy   1   x yy   2   x yy   3   title  softmax

User · Answer

PLOTYY allows two different y-axes   Or you might look into LayerPlot from the File Exchange   I guess I should ask if you ve considered using HOLD or just rescaling the data and using regular old plot   OLD  not what the OP was looking for  SUBPLOT allows you to break a figure window into multiple axes   Then if you want to have only one x-axis showing  or some other customization  you can manipulate each axis independently

User · Answer

Multi-scale plots are rare to find beyond two axes    Luckily in Matlab it is possible  but you have to fully overlap axes and play with tickmarks so as not to hide info   Below is a nice working sample  I hope this is what you are looking for  although colors could be much nicer    close all clear all   display  Generating data     x   0 10  y1   rand 1 11   y2   10  rand 1 11   y3   100  rand 1 11   y4   100  rand 1 11    display  Plotting     figure  ax1   gca  get ax1  Position   set ax1  XColor   k           YColor   b           YLim   0 1           YTick   0  0 2  0 4  0 6  0 8  1 0    line x  y1   Color    b    LineStyle    -    Marker         Parent   ax1   ax2   axes  Position  get ax1  Position                   XAxisLocation   bottom                  YAxisLocation   left                  Color   none                  XColor   k                  YColor   r                  YLim   0 10                  YTick   1  3  5  7  9                  XTick      XTickLabel       line x  y2   Color    r    LineStyle    -    Marker         Parent   ax2   ax3   axes  Position  get ax1  Position                   XAxisLocation   bottom                  YAxisLocation   right                  Color   none                  XColor   k                  YColor   g                  YLim   0 100                  YTick   0  20  40  60  80  100                  XTick      XTickLabel       line x  y3   Color    g    LineStyle    -    Marker         Parent   ax3   ax4   axes  Position  get ax1  Position                   XAxisLocation   bottom                  YAxisLocation   right                  Color   none                  XColor   k                  YColor   c                  YLim   0 100                  YTick   10  30  50  70  90                  XTick      XTickLabel       line x  y4   Color    c    LineStyle    -    Marker         Parent   ax4      source  pablorodriguez info

[matlab] Plotting 4 curves in a single plot, with 3 y-axes

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