Creating Graphical User Interfaces

Plotting the Results Data

The GUI Plot button callback creates a plot of the run data and adds a legend. The data to plot is passed to the callback in the handles structure, which also contains the gain settings used when the simulation ran. When a user clicks on the Plot button, the callback executes the following steps:

• Collects the data for each run selected in the Results list, including two variables (time vector and output vector) and a color for each result run to plot.
• Generates a string for the legend from the stored data.
• Creates the figure and axes for plotting and saves the handles for use by the Close button callback.
• Plots the data, adds a legend, and makes the figure visible.

Plotting Into the Hidden Figure

The figure that contains the plot is created invisible and then made visible after adding the plot and legend. To prevent this figure from becoming the target for plotting commands issued at the command line or by other GUIs, its HandleVisibility and IntegerHandle properties are set to off. However, this means the figure is also hidden from the plot and legend commands.

Use the following steps to plot into a hidden figure:

• Save the handle of the figure when you create it.
• Create an axes, set its Parent property to the figure handle, and save the axes handle.
• Create the plot (which is one or more line objects), save these line handles, and set their Parent properties to the handle of the axes.
• Make the figure visible.

Plot Button Callback Listing

Here is the Plot button callback.

• function PlotButton_Callback(hObject, eventdata, handles)
  currentVal = get(handles.ResultsList,'Value');
  % Get data to plot and generate command string with color
  % specified
  legendStr = cell(length(currentVal),1);
  plotColor = {'b','g','r','c','m','y','k'};
  for ctVal = 1:length(currentVal);
      PlotData{(ctVal*3)-2} = 
  handles.ResultsData(currentVal(ctVal)).timeVector;
      PlotData{(ctVal*3)-1} = 
  handles.ResultsData(currentVal(ctVal)).outputVector;
      numColor = ctVal - 7*( floor((ctVal-1)/7) );
      PlotData{ctVal*3} = plotColor{numColor};
      legendStr{ctVal} = 
  [handles.ResultsData(currentVal(ctVal)).RunName,...
          '; Kf=', ...
          
  num2str(handles.ResultsData(currentVal(ctVal)).KfValue),...
          ';  Ki=', ...
          
  num2str(handles.ResultsData(currentVal(ctVal)).KiValue)];
  end
  % If necessary, create the plot figure and store in handles
  % structure
  if ~isfield(handles,'PlotFigure') | 
  ~ishandle(handles.PlotFigure),
      handles.PlotFigure = figure('Name','F14 Simulation 
  Output',...
          'Visible','off','NumberTitle','off',...
          'HandleVisibility','off','IntegerHandle','off');
      handles.PlotAxes = axes('Parent',handles.PlotFigure);
      guidata(hObject, handles)
  end
  % Plot data
  pHandles = plot(PlotData{:},'Parent',handles.PlotAxes);
  % Add a legend, and bring figure to the front
  legend(pHandles(1:2:end),legendStr{:})
  % Make the figure visible and bring it forward
  figure(handles.PlotFigure)
  

Removing Results from the List Box

The GUI Help Button