matlab2tikz

Hello,
first of all: Very Good Tutorial! Thanks for it.
I have a problem with the tikz-file and i don’t know how to fix it.
The label of my y-axis overlapes with the scale on the y-axis. The reason is that the values ​​of the scale are very small and are multiplied by 10^-3. Instead of 10^-3 is on the top (as in the x-axis), all values of the scale are multiplied with it seperately, e.g.
1 * 10^-3
8 * 10^-4
6 * 10^-4
…
and so the label overlapes with the first column of values. I don’t understand why is in the right form in the x-axis but not in the y-axis. In my Matlab-figure there is everything ok.
I hope i explained it understandably and somebody has a solution for this problem.

I think I have the same problem as Arne...

For some reason I get errors including the tikz-file created with matlab2tikz to LateX (but other tikfiles). I use MATLAB R2012a, texmaker and ubuntu.

The problem seems to be within the table from the tikz file.

Some of the errors I get: (line with }; at the end of the table)
!Missing \endcsname inserted <to be read again>\protect}
!Extra \endcsname.\pgfutil@ifundefind..\ifx\csname#1\endcsname\relax \expandafter \pgfut...}
!use of newline doesn't match it's definition
!Argument of \@firstoftwo has an extra}

I'd be really thankful for help!

Error using matlab2tikz>handleAllChildren (line 674)
I don't know how to handle this object: light

Error in matlab2tikz>drawAxes (line 829)
[m2t, childrenEnvs] = handleAllChildren(m2t, handle);

Error in matlab2tikz>saveToFile (line 487)
m2t = drawAxes(m2t, relevantAxesHandles(ix), alignmentOptions(ix));

Error in matlab2tikz (line 396)
saveToFile(m2t, fid, fileWasOpen);

Very useful. But how to keep the font name/color/size axis or title of figures?

Matlab2Tikz is a great tool! Thanks a lot for sharing!
@ Nico: You did a fantastic work which helps me a lot. However, there is a minor thing you might want to change in a future release (currently unsing 0.3.2): If one is trying to convert a contour(f) plot and include the result in a tex file, one gets in trouble with the alignment. This is caused by the preamble of the resulting file, with some blank lines and the \definecolor command. In my latex distribution (miktex) every linebreak causes a small shift to the right (propably a 'blank' is interpreted) and as more colors are defined as further the figure is shifted. To avoid this behavior I added %% where the \defincolor is set up, and thus it reads: sprintf('\\definecolor{%s}{rgb}{%.15g,%.15g,%.15g}%%\n'
To get a really tight boundary box, some other lines in the preamble might need %-sign, too.
If you want me to, I can send you a simple example showing the problem.

Best regards,
Christoph.

@Georg I could certainly make this an option. If you could file a bug at <https://github.com/nschloe/matlab2tikz/issues> and explain a little bit more about what format is needed, that'd be great.

@Karthick You can use the resulting file with `latex` (generating a PS-document) as well as `pdflatex`, fonts come out just as they are in the LaTeX document, you can customize your plot after it's been generated, and probably a bunch of other reasons. All in all, when you compare MATLAB's generated PDF with the compiled output of matlab2tikz, you'll notice a distinct difference in quality.

Dear Niko

I am trying to convert a 3d plot with many patches, but the ordering is incorrect. Some patches that should appear behind others, appear in front. I am not sure if this is a tikz problem, but was wondering if you have encountered this as well. Any help would be appreciated.

@H VH Ayala: Try matlab2tikz('strict', true). That should put the ticks exactly where MATLAB has them.

@Anke This is currently not possible with m2t alone, and I wouldn't even recommend it for line plots -- after all, m2t cannot tell which data is important for you and which can be stripped. I'd recommend for you to manually reduce the number of data points in your 3D plots until the TeX compilation time becomes bearable.

Works flawlessly! Good job!

perfect

@Georg If you file a bug at https://github.com/nschloe/matlab2tikz/issues giving a few more details (like providing the PNGs that failed along with the MATLAB code), I can try to fix this.

Just amazing!

@H VH Ayala:
Do those styles allow for \usepackage{pgfplots}? That would be the only condition.
Also, by using Pgfplots' 'externalize' feature, you can convert those plots into PDFs which should be natively supported by any journal. (You may want to check out the 'standalone' option for matlab2tikz as well.)

@gbernardi:
\text is defined in the amsmath package. Try to include '\usepackage{amsmath}' in the preamble, this should solve your problems.

@gbernardi
matlab2tikz tries to be smart about how tags and labels look like, but may fail sometimes. Try setting 'parseStrings' to false.
If that doesn't help, a bug report with a small example code on https://github.com/nschloe/matlab2tikz/issues would be appreciated.

Seriously I just saw my previous rating to your file in 2010 and I assure you that that was done by accident! I usually do not rate files, let alone give one star with no reason!This is a great tool so I hope my current rating somehow correct things. Is there a way to delete my previous rating or something?Thanx for sharing!

A great tool.

Hi everybody,

I figured out another problem:

Somehow, matlab2tikz is not able to process >>plot3(xvector,yvector,zvector)<< files.

Even the most simple example does not work:

% ###################################################################

x = rand(100,1)*4-2;
y = rand(100,1)*4-2;
z = x.*exp(-x.^2-y.^2);

% Construct the interpolant
% F = TriScatteredInterp(x,y,z,'nearest');
% F = TriScatteredInterp(x,y,z,'natural');
F = TriScatteredInterp(x,y,z,'linear');

% Evaluate the interpolant at the locations (qx, qy), qz
% is the corresponding value at these locations.
ti = -2:.25:2;
[qx,qy] = meshgrid(ti,ti);
qz = F(qx,qy);

hold on
surf(qx,qy,qz)
plot3(x,y,z,'o')
view(gca,[-69 14]);
hold off

matlab2tikz( 'testplot3D.tikz', 'height', '\plothoehe', 'width', '\plotbreite', 'parseStrings', false);

% ###################################################################

Compare with matlabfrag, I like matlab2tikz better. The quality of tikz output is superb! Great work! Thanks!

matfig2pgf code has an option to reduce the number of data points. Can u include same algorithm in ur code also!...

i have the open plot and input:

matlab2tikz( 'myfile.tikz', 'height', '10cm', 'width', '5mm' );

...works fine with 2D-plots.

...or is it the plot-code you're asking for?

hi.

thanks. very useful script...generally. but i have a problem with my 3d-plots when the colorbar is displayed...i get the error message:

"Warning: Physical units of x- and y-axis do not coincide (x: mm; y: cm).Color bar sizes will
likely need tweaking."

"Error in ==> matlab2tikz>getAxisTicks at 3852
s = str2double( tickLabel{k} );"

is there any solution to this? thanks in advance.

Tim: Easy. Just use

>> matlab2tikz( 'myfile.tikz', 'height', '\figureheight', 'width', '\figurewidth' );

for all of your figures and set \figureheight and \figurewidth once in your LaTeX document.
See the README.

There's always interest in patches to matlab2tikz! You could send a pull request on GitHub, or send the patch through by mail (use git format-patch to get properly credited) or create a pull request on GitHub. I don't mind either way.

Hi Sebastien,

the #-issue should be fixed now; thanks for the report.
At the moment, I don't think pgfplots has a way of controlling the legend box aspect ratio in any way, but you may want to skim through its manual. Let me know in case you find something!

very nice script!! I've been using MATLAB EPS export and then editing with Inkscape and saving as PDF+LaTex solution so far, but this one is simpler and better as it solves in an elegant way the label positioning problems of my former solution!
Thanks!

Hi Nico,
Thanks again for the great work.

Few requests:
1. Is it possible to have a command line switch to put all Matlab legend entries just in {}, instead of $$ + \text{}? My legends are mostly non-formula, so I can format them much easier if they come through matlab2tikz in this shape.

2. I propose to put "defining custom colors" section before \begin{tikzpicture} because if you make legends in the fig. caption (by using \label{} and \ref{}), LaTeX will report an error without this, since \definecolor is only scoped to tikzpicture.

3. Related to 2: Any chance of automatic labeling of plots? For example \label{filename-p1}, \label{filename-p2},....

Thanks,
Igor

@Alexander Klein: I implemented one or two things, you may wanna check out the latest release.
For future changes, it's best to submit a bug report at https://github.com/nschloe/matlab2tikz/.

Thank you, Nico, the script is a work of art. I am an experienced LaTeX user (what I used to write my dissertation), and very comfortable in MatLab (minus any major plot generation). Thus, when I found your code, you can imagine how thrilled I was as I am building scripts for report generation at this time. This would be, easily, the best script I have ever encountered on this file exchange if I could find how to:
1) Remove the 10^5 in the x-axis label (I also use datetick and have added the suggestion by Mukhtar to the LaTeX preamble to no avail).
2) Predefine line width, image aspect ratio, and some sort of a scaling parameter, so that the output width and height parameters in the tikz, e.g.,

width=0.90\textwidth,
height=0.35\textheight

3) Some sort of understanding of how I can specify whether or not the title, axis labels, legends not be interpreted in LaTeX math mode (or do you suggest that I hard code this)?

Perhaps such features are supported (as mentioned by Petter), however a quick browse through the m file didn't give me much of a starting point.

@Alexander Klein, I am interested to know if your improvements were ever implemented by the author?

Thanks all for everything,
Cheers!

It was because matlab2tikz wrapped my x and ylabels with $..$. I removed that piece of code and got my expected results.

Spaces in xlabel doesn't seem to work

Looks good, but I am missing the functionality to keep the aspect ratio and change the width. E.g., \includegraphics[width=3cm]{image}

The help does not cover the optional arguments.

Wondeful tool. Today, I tried it and it could be no better than that. I faced that same problem ( that annoying x10^5), as mentioned by Paul, but that has nothing to do with malab2tikz.m but the way pgfplot processes the tick labels. I found a solution, though, which I would like to share and request Nico to include it in the readme file.
Add this to your latex document preamble
\pgfplotsset{x tick label style={/pgf/number format/fixed}}
\pgfplotsset{y tick label style={/pgf/number format/fixed}}
Of course, you do not need that if you are happy with the x10^5 notation.

Hi,

Amazing tool !!! Thank you very much.

I have an annoying problem though. I have coordinates imported from as matlab serial dates, which I then re-label using xtick. Works fine except when pgf plots the graph there is an annoying x10^5 in the bottom right corner (which must originate from the matlab serial date values.)

i.e., the code I have is :

\begin{tikzpicture}

\begin{axis}[%
view={0}{90},
scale only axis,
width=\figurewidth,
height=\figureheight,
xmin=724642, xmax=733408,
ymin=0, ymax=3.5,
xtick={724642,725373,726103,726834,727564,728295,729025,729756,730486,731217,731947,732678,733408},
xticklabels={84,86,88,90,92,94,96,98,00,02,04,06,08},

Could somebody please help me with this?

Best regards
Paul

Excellent Tool, plots come out looking great!

I've used this submission extensively to add plots to my LaTeX-Files and it works like intended. Thanks for that submission!