How to draw a plot like this in MATLAB instead of using SigmaPlot

Hello,

Is there a way of plotting a similar graph to the one shown below using MATLAB?

[Dyuman Joshi]

It is possible to plot like this, but that would require using a bunch of different functions -

Check out - plot, annotation, text

I am not sure about the grey patches. Are they boxplots?

Answer 1

[akshatsood]

Hi Nourhan,

I understand that you wish to draw a plot similar to the screenshot attached in the question. As per my understanding, a closely related figure could be achieved by using the boxplot function. Here is the code snippet to plot the figure using random data with some of the specifications resembling with the screenshot attached.

x = abs(100*randn(100,25)); % assuming a random data

bp = boxplot(x,'Color','k'); % create a boxplot for multiple groups

% extract upper and lower whiskers from the box plot and hide them
whiskers = findobj('-regexp','Tag','(Lower|Upper) (Whisker|Adjacent Value)');
set(whiskers,'LineStyle','none')

% select outliers and delete them
h = findobj(gca,'tag','Outliers');delete(h)

% get the handles of the individual boxes
h = findobj(gca, 'Tag', 'Box');

numBoxes = numel(h);
numToColor = 8; % number of boxes to color

% create a vector of random indices to color the boxes
indicesToColor = randperm(numBoxes, numToColor);

for i = 1:numel(h) % iterate through all boxes

    x = mean(h(i).XData([1, 3])); % x-coordinate of the marker
    yTop = max(h(i).YData); % y-coordinate of the top marker
    yBottom = min(h(i).YData); % y-coordinate of the bottom marker
    
    hold on;
    plot(x, yTop, 'ks', 'MarkerSize', 5, 'MarkerFaceColor','black'); % set top marker
    plot(x, yBottom, 'k^', 'MarkerSize', 5, 'MarkerFaceColor','black'); % set bottom marker
    hold off;

end

% coloring random box plots
for i = 1:numToColor
    patch(get(h(indicesToColor(i)),'XData'),get(h(indicesToColor(i)),'YData'), ...
        [0.5 0.5 0.5], 'FaceAlpha',.5);
end

xlabel('Year');
ylabel('(T&A days)');

ylim([0 160]);

For adding annotations, you can leverage annotation function to add arrows at the required places.

The script attached above outlines a workflow which can be carried forward to achieve the plot with your data combined with required modifications from your end.

Have a look at the below references for better understanding

Find graphics objects with specific properties - MATLAB findobj - MathWorks India

Set graphics object properties - MATLAB set - MathWorks India

Visualize summary statistics with box plot - MATLAB boxplot - MathWorks India

I hope this helps.

[Nourhan]

This helps a lot, thank you so much.