Require Surface Plot Color Bar Consistant across multiple plots.

I am plotting various different plots

figure
a=[-1 1 -1 -2; 1 2 3 4; 1 1 1 1; -2 -3 -4 -5; -4 -5 -6 -8]
surf([1 2 3 4],[1 2 3 4 5],a)  
colorbar
figure
b=[-2 2 -2 -4; 2 4 6 8; 2 2 2 2; -4 -6 -8 -10; -8 -10 -8 -16]
surf([1 2 3 4],[1 2 3 4 5],b)  
colorbar

And I want the colorbars to be consistant to enable easy comparison as to relative extreme values. I want the color representing -8 on one graph to be same color as -8 on the other graph. Is this possible?

Answer 1

[nick]

Hello Jaye,

To achieve this, you need to set the color limits 'caxis' for both plots to be the same, as shown:

% Data for the first plot
a = [-1 1 -1 -2; 1 2 3 4; 1 1 1 1; -2 -3 -4 -5; -4 -5 -6 -8];

% Data for the second plot
b = [-2 2 -2 -4; 2 4 6 8; 2 2 2 2; -4 -6 -8 -10; -8 -10 -8 -16];

% Determine the global minimum and maximum values across both datasets
global_min = min(min([a(:); b(:)]));
global_max = max(max([a(:); b(:)]));

% Plot the first surface
figure;
surf([1 2 3 4], [1 2 3 4 5], a);
colorbar;
caxis([global_min global_max]); % Set consistent color limits

% Plot the second surface
figure;
surf([1 2 3 4], [1 2 3 4 5], b);
colorbar;
caxis([global_min global_max]); % Set consistent color limits

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Kindly refer to the documentation by executing the following command in MATLAB Command Window to know more about 'caxis' function :

doc caxis