How can I add a colorbar that lines up with an axis in a surf plot?

I have a surface plot and I want to make a colorbar that is in the same location as the vertical axis numbers and label. I also want it to line up with the numbers on the axis. Is this possible?

Answer 1

[Kelly Kearney]

Determining the plotting area of a 3D axis can be tricky. But if you don't mind a little manual clicking, the following method works. When the cursor appears, click first of the lower vertex of the z-axis, then on the upper vertex. This assumes the colorbar will go to the left of the axis and that you're using the default view, but a few little modifications can move it to the right or deal with other rotations.

[x,y,z] = peaks(20);
surf(x,y,z)
cb = colorbar;

axtmp = axes('position', [0 0 1 1], 'color', 'none');
[xax, yax] = ginput(2);
delete(axtmp);
cbpos = get(cb, 'position');
set(cb, 'position', [xax(1)-cbpos(3) yax(1) cbpos(3) diff(yax)]);
set(gca, 'clim', get(gca, 'zlim'));
set(cb, 'Ticks', get(gca, 'ztick'));