Polar Axes Appearance and Behavior in MATLAB

In data visualization, the polar axes are used to represent data in polar coordinates. Polar axes provide a way of visualizing complex data in the form of polar plots. Read this article to learn the methods of changing the properties of polar axes to control their appearance and behavior.

Before learning to customize the appearance and behavior of polar axes, let us see how to create a polar axes and polar plot in MATLAB.

How to Create Polar Axes in MATLAB?

In MATLAB, there is a built-in function named "polaraxes" used to create polar axes in MATLAB figures.

Its syntax is as follows −

polaraxes();

Example

The following example demonstrates that how to create the polar axes using the "polaraxes" function in MATLAB.

% MATLAB code to create default polar axes
% Create a default polar axes
polaraxes;

% Sample data to create a polar plot
theta = linspace(0, 2*pi, 150);
value = sin(2*theta);

% Plot data on the polar axes
polarplot(theta, value);
title('Default Polar Axes');

Output

It will produce the following output −

This example code shows how to create the polar axes with default properties in MATLAB.

Polar Axes Properties

The following are some important properties of polar axes that we can change in MATLAB.

• Axes ticks

• Axes limits

• Axes tick labels

• R-axis (radial-axis) tick angle

Let us discuss how to customize each of these properties of polar axes using MATLAB.

Add Axes Ticks to Polar Axes

In polar axes, the axes ticks are small marks used to represent the specific data values of the axes.

In the case of polar axes, we have two axes ticks namely, radial axis tick (y-axis tick) and angular axis tick (x-axis tick).

In MATLAB, we have two options namely, "ThetaTick" and "RTick" to add angular and radial axes ticks respectively, to the polar axes.

Example

Here is an example showing the way of adding axes ticks to the polar axes.

% MATLAB code to add customized axes ticks
% Creating default polar axes
ax = polaraxes;

% Defining Sample data to create a polar plot
theta = linspace(0, 2*pi, 100);
value = sin(2*theta);

% Creating a polar plot
polarplot(ax, theta, value);
title('Customized Polar Axes with Ticks');

% Adding axes ticks to polar axes
ax.ThetaTick = [0:45:315]; 
ax.RTick = [0:0.2:1];

Output

It will produce the following output −

This example shows how to add customized polar axes ticks.

Customize Axes Limits of Polar Axes

In MATLAB, we can customize the limits of polar axes. For this, MATLAB provides two built-in functions namely, "thetalim" and "rlim" to customize the theta axis limit and radial axes limit respectively.

Its syntax is as follows −

thetalim(Vector of theta axis limits);
rlim(Vector of r-axis limits);

Example

Take a look the following example to understand this task.

% MATLAB code to customize polar axes limits
% Create a polar axis
ax = polaraxes;

% Create data for polar plot
t = linspace(0, 2*pi, 100);
r = sin(2*t);

% Create a polar plot of the data
polarplot(ax, t, r);

% Customize the polar axis limits
rlim([0, 2]);	% Radial axis limit
thetalim([0, 180]); % Theta axis limit

Output

It will produce the following output −

This example shows how to customize the axes limits of a polar plot.

Add Axes Tick Labels to Polar Axes

MATLAB also provides a way of adding customized axes tick labels to polar axes in a polar plot. For this, MATLAB has two built-in functions namely, "rticklabels" and "thetaticklabels" to customize radial axis tick label and theta axis tick label respectively.

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Its syntax is as follows −

rticklabels(Specify R-Tick Labels);
thetaticklabels(Specify Theta-Tick Labels);

Example

Let us take an example to understand how to add customized axes tick labels to polar axes.

% MATLAB code to customize polar axes tick labels
% Create a polar axis
ax = polaraxes;

% Create data for polar plot
t = linspace(0, 2*pi, 100);
r = sin(t);

% Create a polar plot of the data
polarplot(ax, t, r);

% Customize polar axes ticks and labels
rticks([0, 0.2, 0.4, 0.6, 0.8, 1.0]);         % Radial axis ticks

% Radial axis tick labels
rticklabels({'a=0', 'b=0.2', 'c=0.4', 'd=0.6', 'e=0.8', 'f=1.0'});  

thetaticks([0, 90, 180, 270]);                 % Theta axis ticks

% Theta axis tick labels
thetaticklabels({'Right', 'Top', 'Left', 'Bottom'});

Output

It will produce the following output −

This example shows the way of customizing the axes tick labels of a polar plot.

Change R-Tick Angle of Polar Axes

In MATLAB, we can change the angle of radial axis ticks. For this, MATLAB provides a function "rtickangle".

Its syntax is as follows −

rtickangle(axis, angle);

Example

The following example shows the method of changing r-tick angle of the polar axes.

% MATLAB code to change R-tick angle
% Create a polar axis
ax = polaraxes;

% Create data for polar plot
t = linspace(0, 2*pi, 100);
r = sin(2*t);

% Create a polar plot of the data
polarplot(ax, t, r);

% Change the R-tick angle
rtickangle(ax, 270);	% Rotating R-tick to 270°

Output

It will produce the following output −

This example demonstrates the method of changing the angle of R-ticks of a polar plot.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we can change various properties of polar axes to change their appearance and behavior according to our needs. We can add custom ticks and tick labels, rotate R-ticks, and more. In this article, I explained the methods of changing some important properties of polar axes with the help of examples in MATLAB.