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Christmas is coming, here are two dynamic Christmas tree drawing codes:
Crystal XMas Tree
function XmasTree2024_1
fig = figure('Units','normalized', 'Position',[.1,.1,.5,.8],...
'Color',[0,9,33]/255, 'UserData',40 + [60,65,75,72,0,59,64,57,74,0,63,59,57,0,1,6,45,75,61,74,28,57,76,57,1,1]);
axes('Parent',fig, 'Position',[0,-1/6,1,1+1/3], 'UserData',97 + [18,11,0,13,3,0,17,4,17],...
'XLim',[-1.5,1.5], 'YLim',[-1.5,1.5], 'ZLim',[-.2,3.8], 'DataAspectRatio', [1,1,1], 'NextPlot','add',...
'Projection','perspective', 'Color',[0,9,33]/255, 'XColor','none', 'YColor','none', 'ZColor','none')
%% Draw Christmas tree
F = [1,3,4;1,4,5;1,5,6;1,6,3;...
2,3,4;2,4,5;2,5,6;2,6,3];
dP = @(V) patch('Faces',F, 'Vertices',V, 'FaceColor',[0 71 177]./255,...
'FaceAlpha',rand(1).*0.2+0.1, 'EdgeColor',[0 71 177]./255.*0.8,...
'EdgeAlpha',0.6, 'LineWidth',0.5, 'EdgeLighting','gouraud', 'SpecularStrength',0.3);
r = .1; h = .8;
V0 = [0,0,0; 0,0,1; 0,r,h; r,0,h; 0,-r,h; -r,0,h];
% Rotation matrix
Rx = @(V, theta) V*[1 0 0; 0 cos(theta) sin(theta); 0 -sin(theta) cos(theta)];
Rz = @(V, theta) V*[cos(theta) sin(theta) 0;-sin(theta) cos(theta) 0; 0 0 1];
N = 180; Vn = zeros(N, 3); eval(char(fig.UserData))
for i = 1:N
tV = Rz(Rx(V0.*(1.2 - .8.*i./N + rand(1).*.1./i^(1/5)), pi/3.*(1 - .6.*i./N)), i.*pi/8.1 + .001.*i.^2) + [0,0,.016.*i];
dP(tV); Vn(i,:) = tV(2,:);
end
scatter3(Vn(:,1).*1.02,Vn(:,2).*1.02,Vn(:,3).*1.01, 30, 'w', 'Marker','*', 'MarkerEdgeAlpha',.5)
%% Draw Star of Bethlehem
w = .3; R = .62; r = .4; T = (1/8:1/8:(2 - 1/8)).'.*pi;
V8 = [ 0, 0, w; 0, 0,-w;
1, 0, 0; 0, 1, 0; -1, 0, 0; 0,-1,0;
R, R, 0; -R, R, 0; -R,-R, 0; R,-R,0;
cos(T).*r, sin(T).*r, T.*0];
F8 = [1,3,25; 1,3,11; 2,3,25; 2,3,11; 1,7,11; 1,7,13; 2,7,11; 2,7,13;
1,4,13; 1,4,15; 2,4,13; 2,4,15; 1,8,15; 1,8,17; 2,8,15; 2,8,17;
1,5,17; 1,5,19; 2,5,17; 2,5,19; 1,9,19; 1,9,21; 2,9,19; 2,9,21;
1,6,21; 1,6,23; 2,6,21; 2,6,23; 1,10,23; 1,10,25; 2,10,23; 2,10,25];
V8 = Rx(V8.*.3, pi/2) + [0,0,3.5];
patch('Faces',F8, 'Vertices',V8, 'FaceColor',[255,223,153]./255,...
'EdgeColor',[255,223,153]./255, 'FaceAlpha', .2)
%% Draw snow
sXYZ = rand(200,3).*[4,4,5] - [2,2,0];
sHdl1 = plot3(sXYZ(1:90,1),sXYZ(1:90,2),sXYZ(1:90,3), '*', 'Color',[.8,.8,.8]);
sHdl2 = plot3(sXYZ(91:200,1),sXYZ(91:200,2),sXYZ(91:200,3), '.', 'Color',[.6,.6,.6]);
annotation(fig,'textbox',[0,.05,1,.09], 'Color',[1 1 1], 'String','Merry Christmas Matlaber',...
'HorizontalAlignment','center', 'FontWeight','bold', 'FontSize',48,...
'FontName','Times New Roman', 'FontAngle','italic', 'FitBoxToText','off','EdgeColor','none');
% Rotate the Christmas tree and let the snow fall
for i=1:1e8
sXYZ(:,3) = sXYZ(:,3) - [.05.*ones(90,1); .06.*ones(110,1)];
sXYZ(sXYZ(:,3)<0, 3) = sXYZ(sXYZ(:,3) < 0, 3) + 5;
sHdl1.ZData = sXYZ(1:90,3); sHdl2.ZData = sXYZ(91:200,3);
view([i,30]); drawnow; pause(.05)
end
end
Curved XMas Tree
function XmasTree2024_2
fig = figure('Units','normalized', 'Position',[.1,.1,.5,.8],...
'Color',[0,9,33]/255, 'UserData',40 + [60,65,75,72,0,59,64,57,74,0,63,59,57,0,1,6,45,75,61,74,28,57,76,57,1,1]);
axes('Parent',fig, 'Position',[0,-1/6,1,1+1/3], 'UserData',97 + [18,11,0,13,3,0,17,4,17],...
'XLim',[-6,6], 'YLim',[-6,6], 'ZLim',[-16, 1], 'DataAspectRatio', [1,1,1], 'NextPlot','add',...
'Projection','perspective', 'Color',[0,9,33]/255, 'XColor','none', 'YColor','none', 'ZColor','none')
%% Draw Christmas tree
[X,T] = meshgrid(.4:.1:1, 0:pi/50:2*pi);
XM = 1 + sin(8.*T).*.05;
X = X.*XM; R = X.^(3).*(.5 + sin(8.*T).*.02);
dF = @(R, T, X) surf(R.*cos(T), R.*sin(T), -X, 'EdgeColor',[20,107,58]./255,...
'FaceColor', [20,107,58]./255, 'FaceAlpha',.2, 'LineWidth',1);
CList = [254,103,110; 255,191,115; 57,120,164]./255;
for i = 1:5
tR = R.*(2 + i); tT = T+i; tX = X.*(2 + i) + i;
SFHdl = dF(tR, tT, tX);
[~, ind] = sort(SFHdl.ZData(:)); ind = ind(1:8);
C = CList(randi([1,size(CList,1)], [8,1]), :);
scatter3(tR(ind).*cos(tT(ind)), tR(ind).*sin(tT(ind)), -tX(ind), 120, 'filled',...
'CData', C, 'MarkerEdgeColor','none', 'MarkerFaceAlpha',.3)
scatter3(tR(ind).*cos(tT(ind)), tR(ind).*sin(tT(ind)), -tX(ind), 60, 'filled', 'CData', C)
end
%% Draw Star of Bethlehem
Rx = @(V, theta) V*[1 0 0; 0 cos(theta) sin(theta); 0 -sin(theta) cos(theta)];
% Rz = @(V, theta) V*[cos(theta) sin(theta) 0;-sin(theta) cos(theta) 0; 0 0 1];
w = .3; R = .62; r = .4; T = (1/8:1/8:(2 - 1/8)).'.*pi;
V8 = [ 0, 0, w; 0, 0,-w;
1, 0, 0; 0, 1, 0; -1, 0, 0; 0,-1,0;
R, R, 0; -R, R, 0; -R,-R, 0; R,-R,0;
cos(T).*r, sin(T).*r, T.*0];
F8 = [1,3,25; 1,3,11; 2,3,25; 2,3,11; 1,7,11; 1,7,13; 2,7,11; 2,7,13;
1,4,13; 1,4,15; 2,4,13; 2,4,15; 1,8,15; 1,8,17; 2,8,15; 2,8,17;
1,5,17; 1,5,19; 2,5,17; 2,5,19; 1,9,19; 1,9,21; 2,9,19; 2,9,21;
1,6,21; 1,6,23; 2,6,21; 2,6,23; 1,10,23; 1,10,25; 2,10,23; 2,10,25];
V8 = Rx(V8.*.8, pi/2) + [0,0,-1.3];
patch('Faces',F8, 'Vertices',V8, 'FaceColor',[255,223,153]./255,...
'EdgeColor',[255,223,153]./255, 'FaceAlpha', .2)
annotation(fig,'textbox',[0,.05,1,.09], 'Color',[1 1 1], 'String','Merry Christmas Matlaber',...
'HorizontalAlignment','center', 'FontWeight','bold', 'FontSize',48,...
'FontName','Times New Roman', 'FontAngle','italic', 'FitBoxToText','off','EdgeColor','none');
%% Draw snow
sXYZ = rand(200,3).*[12,12,17] - [6,6,16];
sHdl1 = plot3(sXYZ(1:90,1),sXYZ(1:90,2),sXYZ(1:90,3), '*', 'Color',[.8,.8,.8]);
sHdl2 = plot3(sXYZ(91:200,1),sXYZ(91:200,2),sXYZ(91:200,3), '.', 'Color',[.6,.6,.6]);
for i=1:1e8
sXYZ(:,3) = sXYZ(:,3) - [.1.*ones(90,1); .12.*ones(110,1)];
sXYZ(sXYZ(:,3)<-16, 3) = sXYZ(sXYZ(:,3) < -16, 3) + 17.5;
sHdl1.ZData = sXYZ(1:90,3); sHdl2.ZData = sXYZ(91:200,3);
view([i,30]); drawnow; pause(.05)
end
end
I wish all MATLABers a Merry Christmas in advance!
Steve Eddins
Steve Eddins
Last activity on 12 Dec 2024 at 21:25

It's time to retire and replace IMSHOW

Speaking as someone with 31+ years of experience developing and using imshow, I want to advocate for retiring and replacing it.
The function imshow has behaviors and defaults that were appropriate for the MATLAB and computer monitors of the 1990s, but which are not the best choice for most image display situations in today's MATLAB. Also, the 31 years have not been kind to the imshow code base. It is a glitchy, hard-to-maintain monster.
My new File Exchange function, imview, illustrates the kind of changes that I think should be made. The function imview is a much better MATLAB graphics citizen and produces higher quality image display by default, and it dispenses with the whole fraught business of trying to resize the containing figure. Although this is an initial release that does not yet support all the useful options that imshow does, it does enough that I am prepared to stop using imshow in my own work.
The Image Processing Toolbox team has just introduced in R2024b a new image viewer called imageshow, but that image viewer is created in a special-purpose window. It does not satisfy the need for an image display function that works well with the axes and figure objects of the traditional MATLAB graphics system.
I have published a blog post today that describes all this in more detail. I'd be interested to hear what other people think.
Note: Yes, I know there is an Image Processing Toolbox function called imview. That one is a stub for an old toolbox capability that was removed something like 15+ years ago. The only thing the toolbox imview function does now is call error. I have just submitted a support request to MathWorks to remove this old stub.
The int function in the Symbolic Toolbox has a hold/release functionality wherein the expression can be held to delay evaluation
syms x I
eqn = I == int(x,x,'Hold',true)
eqn = 
which allows one to show the integral, and then use release to show the result
release(eqn)
ans = 
I think I already submitted an enhancement request for the same functionality for symsum.
Maybe it would be nice to be able to hold/release any symbolic expression to delay the engine from doing evaluations/simplifications that it typically does. For example:
x*(x+1)/x, sin(sym(pi)/3)
ans = 
ans = 
If I'm trying to show a sequence of steps to develop a result, maybe I want to explicitly keep the x/x in the first case and then say "now the x in the numerator and denominator cancel and the result is ..." followed by the release command to get the final result.
Perhaps held expressions could even be nested to show a sequence of results upon subsequent releases.
Held expressions might be subject to other limitations, like maybe they can't be fplotted.
Seems like such a capability might not be useful for problem solving, but might be useful for exposition, instruction, etc.
Watt's Up with Electric Vehicles?EV modeling Ecosystem (Eco-friendly Vehicles), V2V Communication and V2I communications thereby emitting zero Emissions to considerably reduce NOx ,Particulates matters,CO2 given that Combustion is always incomplete and will always be.
Reduction of gas emissions outside to the environment will improve human life span ,few epidemic diseases and will result in long life standard
Image Analyst
Image Analyst
Last activity on 2 Dec 2024 at 22:14

MATLAB Ornament

Christmas season is underway at my house:
(Sorry - the ornament is not available at the MathWorks Merch Shop -- I made it with a 3-D printer.)
Is it possible to differenciate the input, output and in-between wires by colors?
Bob Gastineau
Bob Gastineau
Last activity on 4 Dec 2024 at 1:12

AI Chat playground accuracy metrics

I was curious to startup your new AI Chat playground.
The first screen that popped up made the statement:
"Please keep in mind that AI sometimes writes code and text that seems accurate, but isnt"
Can someone elaborate on what exactly this means with respect to your AI Chat playground integration with the Matlab tools?
Are there any accuracy metrics for this integration?
Image Analyst
Image Analyst
Last activity on 7 Nov 2024

Shade between curves

It would be nice to have a function to shade between two curves. This is a common question asked on Answers and there are some File Exchange entries on it but it's such a common thing to want to do I think there should be a built in function for it. I'm thinking of something like
plotsWithShading(x1, y1, 'r-', x2, y2, 'b-', 'ShadingColor', [.7, .5, .3], 'Opacity', 0.5);
So we can specify the coordinates of the two curves, and the shading color to be used, and its opacity, and it would shade the region between the two curves where the x ranges overlap. Other options should also be accepted, like line with, line style, markers or not, etc. Perhaps all those options could be put into a structure as fields, like
plotsWithShading(x1, y1, options1, x2, y2, options2, 'ShadingColor', [.7, .5, .3], 'Opacity', 0.5);
the shading options could also (optionally) be a structure. I know it can be done with a series of other functions like patch or fill, but it's kind of tricky and not obvious as we can see from the number of questions about how to do it.
Does anyone else think this would be a convenient function to add?
In the past two years, large language models have brought us significant changes, leading to the emergence of programming tools such as GitHub Copilot, Tabnine, Kite, CodeGPT, Replit, Cursor, and many others. Most of these tools support code writing by providing auto-completion, prompts, and suggestions, and they can be easily integrated with various IDEs.
As far as I know, aside from the MATLAB-VSCode/MatGPT plugin, MATLAB lacks such AI assistant plugins for its native MATLAB-Desktop, although it can leverage other third-party plugins for intelligent programming assistance. There is hope for a native tool of this kind to be built-in.
I know we have all been in that all-too-common situation of needing to inefficiently identify prime numbers using only a regular expression... and now Matt Parker from Standup Maths helpfully released a YouTube video entitled "How on Earth does ^.?$|^(..+?)\1+$ produce primes?" in which he explains a simple regular expression (aka Halloween incantation) which matches composite numbers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vbk0TwkokM
Here is my first attempt using MATLAB and Matt Parker's example values:
fnh = @(n) isempty(regexp(repelem('*',n),'^.?$|^(..+?)\1+$','emptymatch'));
fnh(13)
ans = logical
1
fnh(15)
ans = logical
0
fnh(101)
ans = logical
1
fnh(1000)
ans = logical
0
Feel free to try/modify the incantation yourself. Happy Halloween!
saket singh
saket singh
Last activity on 13 Oct 2024

Tools Opinion

hello i found the following tools helpful to write matlab programs. copilot.microsoft.com chatgpt.com/gpts gemini.google.com and ai.meta.com. thanks a lot and best wishes.
Eric LePage
Eric LePage
Last activity on 11 Oct 2024

Paint store color swatch for Matlab

If I go to a paint store, I can get foldout color charts/swatches for every brand of paint. I can make a selection and it will tell me the exact proportions of each of base color to add to a can of white paint. There doesn't seem to be any equivalent in MATLAB. The common word "swatch" doesn't even exist in the documentation. (?) One thinks pcolor() would be the way to go about this, but pcolor documentation is the most abstruse in all of the documentation. Thanks 1e+06 !
As pointed out in Doxygen comments in code generated with Simulink Embedded Coder - MATLAB Answers - MATLAB Central (mathworks.com), it would be nice that Embedded Coder has an option to generate Doxygen-style comments for signals of buses, i.e.:
/** @brief <Signal desciption here> **/
This would allow static analysis tools to parse the comments. Please add that feature!
David
David
Last activity on 12 Sep 2024

Jokes in MATLAB

In case you haven't come across it yet, @Gareth created a Jokes toolbox to get MATLAB to tell you a joke.
https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/172039-jokes-in-matlab/
As far as I know, starting from MATLAB R2024b, the documentation is defaulted to be accessed online. However, the problem is that every time I open the official online documentation through my browser, it defaults or forcibly redirects to the documentation hosted site for my current geographic location, often with multiple pop-up reminders, which is very annoying!
Suggestion: Could there be an option to set preferences linked to my personal account so that the documentation defaults to my chosen language preference without having to deal with “forced reminders” or “forced redirection” based on my geographic location? I prefer reading the English documentation, but the website automatically redirects me to the Chinese documentation due to my geolocation, which is quite frustrating!
----------------2024.12.13 update-----------------
Although the above issue was resolved by technical support, subsequent redirects are still causing severe delays...
MATLAB online documentation redirection is very time-consuming - MATLAB Answers - MATLAB Central