MATLAB Report Generator

Understanding Important Handle Graphics Concepts

There are three important Handle Graphics concepts you need to be familiar with before proceeding with the rest of this tutorial:

• Invisible figures
• HandleVisibility parameter
• Tags

See Using MATLAB Graphics for more information on Handle Graphics concepts.

Invisible Figures

When you type figloopfigures, Figures 1,3, and 5 appear (see previous page), but Figures 2 and 4 do not. Figures 2 and 4 are invisible (visible='off'), so you can only see three figures. An invisible figure does not appear on screen; it exists, but it is hidden.

HandleVisibility Parameter

Figures 3 and 4 have HandleVisibility='off'. HandleVisibility is a parameter of a Handle Graphics figure, and it determines whether the handles in your figure are visible. See Using MATLAB Graphics for more information on HandleVisibility.

To list all figures in your workspace that have HandleVisibility='on', type get(0,'children')at the command line. The results show that Figures 5, 1, and 2 have HandleVisibility='on'.

• ans =
       5
       1
       2
  

Note that most figures have HandleVisibility='on'. To turn HandleVisibility off, you have to specify HandleVisibility='off' with the following.

• set(handle,'HandleVisibility','off')
  

Tags

A Handle Graphics figure can have a tag. A tag is a Handle Graphics figure parameter. A tag does not appear in a figure; it is an identifier that you specify.

If you want to see what, if any tag, a figure has, type get(<handle>, 'tag'). The handle of a figure is the figure number; enter the figure number for <handle>. For example, to see whether Figure 1 has a tag, type get(1, 'tag'). The following will appear.

• ans =
       membrane
  

This means that Figure 1 has a tag called membrane.

Every figure in this tutorial has a tag. However, by default, figures have empty tags.

Creating Handle Graphics Figures

Tutorial Figure Summary