nice boxes for great linewidths

Hi,

I'm producing lots of boxplots for a collegue of mine. He needs them with a very big line width (for poster or so, and insists on png files). So I resize the lines after plotting (using findall). but after saving it ends up like: http://i51.tinypic.com/2n9ccpz.png

The corners aren't drawn properly. Funny thing is that on the screen 3 of the 4 corners are drawn nicely rounded.

I wonder if anyone has tips to make boxes properly.

Don't know if it matters but my workplace is still at 2009a.

Answer 1

[Clemens]

hmmm the boxes idea looks clear. Though I'm a bit anxious about it since it might have some side effects on the other graphics I have in the plot - notches eg. (which for reference looks like: http://i54.tinypic.com/k9hoom.png )

I think the problem lies with the ways lines are printed. Also a random line:

x = 1:10; y=rand(10,1);l= line(x,y,'LineWidth',32);

looks "bad": http://i51.tinypic.com/2rvyg0h.png

Thinking about this I came up with an idea. If I'd put dot markers on all corners it should cover the "shame". They'd just have to be the same size as the line. I'm just experimenting with that.

[Clemens]

Lucky me. The first try looks good: http://i54.tinypic.com/bfq1q8.png

lineWidth = 16; lineCover=3*lineWidth;

a = [findall(gcf,'Marker','none') findall(gcf,'Marker','.')];

set(a,'LineWidth',lineWidth,'Marker','.','MarkerSize',lineCover);

[Oleg Komarov]

Nice idea, it reminds me of the option you have in excel to chose the ending of a line!

Answer 2

[Matt Fig]

I don't have the correct toolbox so I cannot test these ideas, but two come to mind. I assume that what looks like blue lines in your image are actually LINE objects.

1. Extending two of the lines (opposite sides) so as to close the gaps. This one would be tricky to get right.

2. Use the coordinates of the lines to create rectangles using the RECTANGLE function. This would be somewhat easier than the above. After the rectangles were created the blue lines could be deleted.

Answer 3

[Matt Tearle]

From my experiments, it appears to be a combination of what Matt Fig said, and just the translation to png. This worked OK for me (annoying as it is):

h = boxplot(x);
set(h,'LineWidth',4)
set(h(7,:),'MarkerSize',10)
replaceboxes

Then File -> Save As and save as emf. Then open the emf in Paint (or whatever) & File -> Save As to save as png.

The last step is optional: slap forehead with palm of hand and shake head sadly.

The magic replaceboxes function:

function replaceboxes
h = findobj('tag','Box');
n = length(h);

for k = 1:n
    x = get(h(k),'XData');
    y = get(h(k),'YData');
    c = get(h(k),'Color');
    l = get(h(k),'LineWidth');
    ht = y(2)-y(1);
    wd = x(3)-x(1);
    rectangle('position',[x(1),y(1),wd,ht],'EdgeColor',c,'LineWidth',l)
end

delete(h);

[Matt Fig]

I am glad someone tried that idea! I wish I could have done it, but I don't like to post untested code...

[Oleg Komarov]

doh...you were faster:

% Create example boxplot

h = boxplot(randn(100,4));

% Set linewidth to 10

set(h,'linewidth',6)

% Retrieve coordinates of the bodies (boxes)

data = get(h(5,:),{'XData','YData'});

for b = 1:size(h,2)

% Create rectangle

pos = [data{b,1}(1) data{b,2}(1) -diff(data{b,1}(end-1:end)) diff(data{b,2}(1:2))];

rectangle('pos',pos,'edgec','b','linew',6)

% Delete box

delete(h(5,b))

end

[Jessica Lam]

From my experiment, it seems to be disable to save one .png file as a nice box for great linewidths . Please find the following code for your ref. Any suggestions? Thanks .

x = 1:10; y=rand(10,1);
h = boxplot(x);
set(h,'LineWidth',4)
set(h(7,:),'MarkerSize',10)
h = findobj('tag','Box');
n = length(h);
for k = 1:n
    x = get(h(k),'XData');
    y = get(h(k),'YData');
    c = get(h(k),'Color');
    l = get(h(k),'LineWidth');
    ht = y(2)-y(1);
    wd = x(3)-x(1);
    rectangle('position',[x(1),y(1),wd,ht],'EdgeColor',c,'LineWidth',l)
end
delete(h);
print('-dpng', 'test.png', '-r100');