How can I keep figures invisible when toggling between axes?

If I create figures using the following code

 for fig=1:2
      figure('papertype','A4','paperorientation','portrait','Visible','Off')
      for sp=1:6
          ax{fig,sp}=subplot(3,2,sp,'parent',fig);
      end
  end

I can then toggle between the subplots using axes, e.g., to get to subplot 4 on figure 2 I use

axes(ax{2,4})

But this makes the figure visible. Does anyone know if there's a way to keep it invisible please?

Thanks in advance for your help! Jen

Answer 1

[Rik]

You can either use the obvious solution/workaround of calling set(gcf,'Visible','off') immediately after that line, or just avoid that line in the first place. Just about every function I can think of will accept a target axis instead of using the current axis as default.

[Jennifer Davies]

Thank you Rik

Answer 2

[Walter Roberson]

Calling axes() should not cause the figure to become visible unless the axes() call is creating a new figure.

Instead of calling axes to make an axes the current axes, you can

for fig=1:2
    figs(fig) = figure('papertype','A4','paperorientation','portrait','Visible','Off');
    for sp=1:6
        ax{fig,sp} = subplot(3, 2, sp, 'parent', figs(fig));
    end
end

and later

set(figs(2), 'CurrentAxes', ax{2, 4})

But as Rik suggests, you can mostly rewrite to pass an axes in to graphics commands, either as the first parameter or using 'Parent' . There are some calls that you cannot do this for, especially when it comes to things like bode plots, or trying to pre-create both axes for use with plotyy()

[Jennifer Davies]

Thanks Walter. I have just changed

axes(ax{2, 4})
to 

set(gcf, 'CurrentAxes', ax{2, 4})

and this seems to work great. Thanks!