How to create multiple plots for time series data?

Hi everyone!

Could someone help me with the following task? - I've got a matrix (example below), where the first column acts as a counter and occasionally ends randomly and starts off with a 1 again. I need to plot each column (except column 1) with a separate plot every time the counter starts at 1. So in the example below, I would plot columns 2,3,4 and 5 every time column 1 is 1 - rows 1 to 8 and then a new plot for each column rows 1 to 9.

1 0.170000000000000 -0.0480000000000000 -0.119000000000000 -0.0770000000000000

2 -0.00400000000000000 -0.187000000000000 -0.362000000000000 -0.333000000000000

3 -0.896000000000000 -1.01400000000000 -1.34500000000000 -1.20700000000000

4 -2.25100000000000 -2.10300000000000 -2.93200000000000 -2.57000000000000

5 -3.61200000000000 -3.31500000000000 -4.20000000000000 -3.97900000000000

6 -4.56500000000000 -4.53900000000000 -5.16900000000000 -4.85300000000000

7 -5.32800000000000 -5.52400000000000 -5.72600000000000 -5.59600000000000

8 -5.60500000000000 -6.22900000000000 -6.30000000000000 -6.18100000000000

1 0.269000000000000 0.0630000000000000 0.0230000000000000 0.114000000000000

2 0.238000000000000 0.0330000000000000 -0.300000000000000 0.138000000000000

3 -0.682000000000000 -0.954000000000000 -1.24300000000000 -1.07300000000000

4 -1.95300000000000 -2.34300000000000 -2.69200000000000 -2.58000000000000

5 -3.15600000000000 -3.76700000000000 -3.98900000000000 -4.06400000000000

6 -4.33200000000000 -5.05900000000000 -5.10500000000000 -5.17300000000000

7 -5.21500000000000 -5.85000000000000 -5.71100000000000 -5.97200000000000

8 -5.78300000000000 -6.22900000000000 -6.15600000000000 -6.45500000000000

9 -6.00500000000000 -6.59700000000000 -6.44900000000000 -6.96900000000000

Answer 1

[Sindar]

While you may want to think about a cleaner way of dealing with the plot (e.g., plotting in the same figure window and saving), this'll do what you need:

% find the index of all the 1's in the first column
idx = find(data_counter(:,1)==1);
% loop over the sets
for ind_set=1:length(idx)
    % figure out where the current set starts and ends
    % you already know where it starts
    start_ind = idx(ind_set);
    % if this is the last set, it ends at the last row
    if ind_set==length(idx)
        end_ind = size(data_counter,1);
    % otherwise, it ends one row before the next set starts
    else
        end_ind = idx(ind_set+1)-1;
    end
    % loop over the columns
    for ind_col = 2:size(data_counter,2)
        % option A: open a new figure so nothing gets overwritten
        figure
        % plot the correct slice of data
        plot(data_counter(start_ind:end_ind,ind_col))
        % option B: save each plot as it is created
        print("Fig__set-"+ind_set+"_col-"+ind_col,'-dpng')
    end
end

[Agnese Usacka]

Thank you very much, it works beautifully.

You are correct to suggest that plotting all in one figure would be much wiser.

[Sindar]

I added a line to the solution for that. Comment out the figure line to stop new windows opening

[Agnese Usacka]

Thank you, that's very helpful. :)