Why does a SUBPLOT on top of another plot remove the underlying plots?

I want to create a set of 4 plots on top of which a fifth plot is created in the center. In order to accomplish this, I have tried to use the SUBPLOT command:

for i = 1:4

      subplot(2, 2, i)

      plot(rand(1, 10));

end

subplot('Position', [.35, .35, .3, .3]);

imshow('canoe.tif')

However, the result is just an image of the canoe. The other plots are gone.

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

This change has been incorporated into the documentation in Release 2009b (R2009b). For previous releases, read below for any additional information:

This is intended behaviour of the SUBPLOT command when different SUBPLOT axes are overlapping as described in the doucmentation. In order to avoid deletion of the first four plots, you should avoid using SUBPLOT for the top plot. For example create a new axes instead:

for i = 1:4

      subplot(2, 2, i)

      plot(rand(1, 10));

end

axes('Position', [.35, .35, .3, .3]);

imshow('canoe.tif')