| Graphics | |
The contourc function calculates the contour matrix for the other contour functions. It is a low-level function that is not called from the command line.
The contouring algorithm first determines which contour levels to draw. If you specified the input vector v, the elements of v are the contour level values, and length(v) determines the number of contour levels generated. If you do not specify v, the algorithm chooses no more than 20 contour levels that are divisible by 2 or 5.
The contouring algorithm treats the input matrix Z as a regularly spaced grid, with each element connected to its nearest neighbors. The algorithm scans this matrix comparing the values of each block of four neighboring elements (i.e., a cell) in the matrix to the contour level values. If a contour level falls within a cell, the algorithm performs a linear interpolation to locate the point at which the contour crosses the edges of the cell. The algorithm connects these points to produce a segment of a contour line.
contour, contour3, and contourf return a two-row matrix specifying all the contour lines. The format of the matrix is
The first row of the column that begins each definition of a contour line contains the value of the contour, as specified by v and used by clabel. Beneath that value is the number of (x,y) vertices in the contour line. Remaining columns contain the data for the (x,y) pairs. For example, the contour matrix calculated by C = contour(peaks(3)) is
The circled values begin each definition of a contour line.
| | Drawing a Single Contour Line at a Desired Level | Changing the Offset of a Contour | |