Plotting powers of 10 on the colorbar

33 views (last 30 days)
Hello,
Is there any way to have powers of 10 (like 1e5, 1e6, 1e7) to be plotted on the colorbar as tickmarks without resorting to using log10? I tried the following code.
col = colorbar('XTickLabel', {'10^{5}', '10^{6}', '10^{7}'}, 'XTick',1e10:1e11:1e12);
caxis([1e10 1e12])
but that just gives me a colorbar with the xticks repeated as shown in colorbar.jpg (attached).
I also tried taking the log10 of these values as shown by the following code and got the desired output as shown in colorbar_log.jpg (attached):
col = colorbar('XTickLabel', {'10^{5}', '10^{6}', '10^{7}'}, 'XTick',log10(1e5):1:log10(1e7));
caxis([log10(1e5) log10(1e7)])
I however was wondering whether the same output as in colorbar_log.jpg can be obtained without resorting to taking log10.
Thanks.

Accepted Answer

Star Strider
Star Strider on 7 Apr 2022
These are 'Ruler' properties, and they are not in the colorbar documentation. (I had to go searching for them, and then experiment.)
Try this —
[X,Y] = meshgrid(-1000:10:1000);
Z = exp(-(X.^2+Y.^2)/1E5)*1E6;
figure
surf(X,Y,Z, 'EdgeColor','none')
grid on
colormap(turbo)
hcb = colorbar;
% get(hcb);
hcb.Ruler.Exponent = 3;
hcb.Ruler.Scale = 'log';
See NumericRuler Properties for more details.
.
  8 Comments

Sign in to comment.

More Answers (1)

Voss
Voss on 7 Apr 2022
Edited: Voss on 7 Apr 2022
You can use naturlal log (log) or base-2 log (log2) (but I think log10 makes the most sense):
col = colorbar('XTickLabel', {'10^{5}', '10^{6}', '10^{7}'}, 'XTick',log(10.^(5:7))/log(10));
caxis([5 7])
figure();
col = colorbar('XTickLabel', {'10^{5}', '10^{6}', '10^{7}'}, 'XTick',log2(10.^(5:7))/log2(10));
caxis([5 7])
  2 Comments
Mathan
Mathan on 7 Apr 2022
Thank you - basically the same thing as log10 I guess.
Voss
Voss on 7 Apr 2022
Exactly. log10 with an extra log.

Sign in to comment.

Categories

Find more on Data Distribution Plots in Help Center and File Exchange

Community Treasure Hunt

Find the treasures in MATLAB Central and discover how the community can help you!

Start Hunting!